Spending Cuts Exacerbate The Misery Of The Poor

The post-1991 refor- ms in India may have made economic conditions more favourable, but the UNDPs 1997 Human Development Report has remarked that the focus on reducing the fiscal deficit by cutting public spending is leading to the abdication of the states responsibilities in key areas affecting the lives of poor people.

The report, released yesterday, takes an overview of Indias performance in various sectors over the last 50 years, and says that the record has been mixed. India remains a country of stark contrasts and disparities, it remarks. Its concern over reduction in public spending is nonetheless tempered with optimism.

 

Noting that the Ninth Plan calls for eradicating poverty by 2005, the reports says that optimism is based on three factors: first, official policies focus on human development priorities - including basic health, basic education, safe drinking water and special attention for socially disadvantageous groups; second, the post-1991 reforms have led to more favourable economic conditions; and third, democratic participation is opening up, not just through local government but also through peoples organisation and womens groups.

The areas where the reports claims the state has abdicated its responsibilities are: the failure to provide free and compulsory elementary education, to abolish child labour, to provide adequately for the social and economic security of marginalised communities, employment generation, to improve living conditions in slums, to prevent pollution and to not only correct but also to forestall market failures.

India needs sustained public action if it is to eliminate the worst forms of human poverty and promote an equitable expansion of social, economic and political opportunities, the reports says.

From this year, the UNDP has introduced a new index, the human poverty index (HPI).

It ranks countries on three variables: vulnerability to death at an early age, the prevalence of illiteracy, and access to health services, safe water and adequate food. Indias HPI rank is 47 among the developing countries.

Since the 1991 reforms, the report notes that there was first a rise, then a fall in income poverty.

In 1989-90, the incidence of income poverty in rural areas was 34 per cent; in 1992, 43 per cent; and 1993-94, it was 39 per cent.

In urban areas, it was 33 per cent, 34 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively.

The report, however, says that such national aggregates mask wide variation among states.

Four states managed to reduce income poverty by more than 50 per cent-Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Kerala and Punjab. Other states were less successful, and today, 50 per cent of Indias rural income-poor live in three states: Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.