India subsidising privileged more than poorest of poor: Sen

Renowned economist Amartya Sen today said Indian governments were subsidising "privileged consumers" more than the "poorest of the poor" even as he noted the positives in the growth rate the country has managed to attain.
"India spends 2 per cent of its GDP on power subsidy even when one-third of its population has no electricity at all.
"It is remarkable they say that, when the Indian power grid failed, 600 million people were plunged into darkness. Of that, 200 million never had any electricity connection at all. That did not get any media attention," Sen said during a lecture at University of Hyderabad here today.

Quoting economist Adam Smith, the Nobel laureate said that if India was growing at 5 to 9 per cent, the public revenue should be growing at 9 to 12 per cent, which was not the case.
As to India's economic performance, Sen noted that when the British left, the growth rate was just 3.5 per cent.
"It (growth rate) moved up to 8.5 per cent. Now, it's come down to 5 per cent, in the range of 4.5 to 5 per cent. India's growth rate is still high when compared to some of the countries in the world," Sen noted.

Earlier, some students tried to disrupt the lecture when Sen had just started, demanding that the economist speak on the oppression of Dalits.
The protesting students were referring to the issue of a recent suicide by a Dalit student-researcher on the university campus.
However, Sen said he that could not comment on the issue as he was not aware of the case.