Call to create grassroot-level organisations

There is a need to create grassroot-level organisations of various types that would generate demand for accountability from various programmes evolved by the government, according to C Rangarajan, chairman of the Economic Advisory Council.

Explaining that those programmes had been more successful wherever there were community participation and involvement, Rangarajan said, "There is an urgent need to get more out of the resources that are being spent and achieve the targets both in quantitative and qualitative terms."

Rangarajan was delivering the valedictory address, 'Economic Growth and Social Development', on the third and concluding day of the silver jubilee seminar on 'Perspectives on Equitable Development: International Experience and What can India Learn?', at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) here on Monday.

The 'Outcome Budget' presented to the Parliament last month was a response by the government to the growing concern about the effectiveness of utilisation of public resources, he said.

Stating that social development and economic growth were not necessarily the same, Rangarajan said that figures available for 2001 showed that there were wide disparities between the income and human development indices computed for different states in India on the model of the global Human Development Index (HDI). While states such as Andhra Pradesh and Haryana ranked 11 and 3 on the Income Index, they were ranked 20 and 17 on the HDI respectively.

On the economic policy of the government, Rangarajan said, "There was nothing new in the economic policy that dilutes or diminishes the role of the state in the development of social infrastructure. By asking the government to vacate the areas in which the markets can function effectively and can be monitored, the government acquires increased financial and administrative resources to pay attention to social infrastructure sectors."