The Hindu : Where India does not shine

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 15, 2004

National

National

Where India does not shine

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, FEB. 14. This is the other side of `India shining.'

Despite the increase in economic growth during the last decade of liberalisation, employment growth has been tardy. Only in the industrial sector have jobs grown from 0.6 per cent during 1987-93 to 2.4 during 1993-99. But then it only accounts for 17.6 per cent of the workforce.

Highlighting "economic gains and social challenges," the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its latest economic bulletin on India has pointed out that the services sector was the fastest growing and the largest sector in the economy accounting for 26 per cent of the total employment. But employment in this sector declined from 3.1 per cent during 1987-93 to 2.1 per cent during 1993-99. In the agriculture sector, which now accounts for only 22 per cent of the total output of the economy, there has been no growth of employment.

As a consequence, while the gross domestic product (GDP) growth has now risen to over seven per cent, overall employment was growing at less than one per cent, a phenomenon sometimes described as ``jobless growth,'' the ADB said. Thus, the resultant increase in open unemployment and underemployment poses a major social challenge for India, the Bank pointed out.

Social challenges

According to the ADB report, there were several other social challenges which need to be urgently addressed.

In the health sphere, the maternal mortality rate has remained more or less stagnant and the proportion of assisted deliveries would have to double at the least to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets set by the United Nations. The National Family Health Survey-2 has revealed that more than one-third of the women in the age group of 15-49 were undernourished. It also revealed considerable disparities in the health status across States and between socio-economic groups. Under-5 and infant mortality rates continued to be high and changes in the population structure have resulted in a larger greying population as per the latest 2001 census, which impacts on human development. The spread of AIDS/HIV and other infectious diseases, stress and population — all pose new challenges to human development, the ADB report said.

Persistent disparities

There were also a variety of persisting disparities across gender, regions and different social groups which are undermining social cohesion. Gender parity in secondary education is far from being achieved. The juvenile sex ratio has recorded sharp decline, highlighting the vulnerable status of the girl child and women. There is also accentuation of regional disparities with the southern and western regions doing much better than the northern and eastern regions. Human poverty indices based on health, literacy, income and social exclusion factors place some States such as Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu on the top rung while Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are on the lowest rung, the report said.

Going on further on the social challenges, the report points out that rural-urban and gender disparities continue to exist between and within States. Significant inequalities also exist in the distribution of interpersonal consumption and levels of living, even within States.

Studies have revealed that the intensity of poverty was the highest among landless wage earners, marginal farmers, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and indigenous populations, the report said.

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