Addressing Poverty

Government's own report on IRDP reveals that only 20 per cent of its beneficiaries have been assisted to cross the poverty-line, though bank credit as high as Rs. 25,900.00 crores has been disbursed / distributed among 49 million families below the poverty-line till the end of February 1996.

There has been a massive jump in the rural poverty ratio from 36.43 per cent in 1990-91 to 37.42 per cent in 1991-92 and 43.17 per cent in 1992-93 according to the World Bank and from 36.55 per cent to 42.06 per cent and 48.07 per cent over this period according to Prof. S.Tendulkar of Delhi School of Economics.

 

While three states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa together accounted for 44.6 per cent of India's rural poor in 1993-94 (increase from 41 per cent in 1987-88), Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal made up another 25.4 per cent of the country's rural poor in 1993-94 though this has fallen from 26.3 per cent in 1987-88; and

In four states of Bihar, U.P, Maharashtra and MP alone, the number of rural poor increased from 1186.88 lakhs to 1356.55 lakhs in 1993-94 as against decline by 99.23 lakhs (from 819 10 lakhs to 719.87 lakhs) in seven states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Well conceived programme has been rendered most ineffective due to:

Large scale politicization and bureaucratization at the block and district level;

Total disregard towards creation of most needed scheme-specific infrastructure at the village and block level;

Gross mis-utilisation of both subsidy and bank credit at beneficiaries level;

Making bank managers merely rubber stamp for sanctioning the proposals and disbursing the loan amount;

Indifferent attitude of the block level staff towards sponsoring of proposals and the like.

While direct attack on rural poverty is the most important, overall growth in rural economy in sharp contrast to overall growth of economy in India, should be accelerated. Accordingly, the programme of economic development in rural area should be addressed as under.

Development of agriculture and non-farm sector in rural areas should be meticulously planned, effectively implemented and periodically monitored, reviewed and evaluated.

As poverty is the direct result/cause of under/unemployment, large-scale employment can be created in the agriculture, allied activities and non-farm sector. Endeavour should be made to improve substantially and sustainably the productivity of land, labour, livestock, water, vegetation, fishery and forestry resources. Besides, slowly and steadily pressure on land should be reduced through development of non-farm sector on the lines of the U.S.A.

Rural credit institutions should be strengthened and made effective through provision of adequately qualified, experienced and trained staff.

They should be given freedom/autonomy to organise rural branches on lines of Multi-Service-Agency/Gram-Vikas-Kendra of Bank of Baroda, Agricultural Development Branch of State Bank of India, Rural Service Centre of Dena Bank, Farmalinic of Syndicate Bank and the like.

Role of DRDA should be more on building scheme specific infrastructure and providing the much needed extension support in rural areas.

Though co-operation has failed, it has to be made to succeed on lines of AMUL in Gujarat, dairy and sugar co-operatives in Maharashtra. So long as small marginal farmers and agricultural labourers continue to swell in number, cooperatives have to be developed/strengthened through infusing professionalism.

The country's administrators should harness the productive potential of several lakhs of farm graduates / post-graduates both employed, unemployed and retired for transfer of technology, conducting lab-to-land and operational research programmes, identifying areas of investment in agriculture, formulation and implementation of agricultural development programmes, monitoring and evaluating the end product of the programmes.

Similarly, fertiliser factories, dairy unions, sugar factories, agro-refineries, farm universities, research centres and the like should also be involved in rural areas for their mission and vision rather than routine kind of role being performed at present.

As six states in India account for 70 per cent of India's rural poor, these states should feel politically committed to bring the rural poverty down. For this purpose these states shall have to manage their financial and non-financial resources very well, build institutional infrastructure, motivate and train the staff for taking up the challenge, make block, district and state administration responsible and accountable to perform.

Removing/minimizing the incidence of poverty will have no impact if every state is not committed to provide basic minimum needs in each and every village viz. provision of safe drinking water, educational and primary health care facilities, transport and communication, pollution-free / eco-friendly environment. For this, not only the State Governments will have to economise on their expenditure drastically and make available the financial resources but also they will have to seek positive involvement of private sector, co-operatives, Panchayati Raj institutions (more of village panchayat) and Non Governmental organisations.

(Dr Patel is former DGM, Bank of Baroda.)

Promotion of rural economic growth and employment generation is key to reduction in rural poverty, says A R Patel.