The Hindu : National : Ansari calls for different human development indicators

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Friday, Nov 02, 2007
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National

Ansari calls for different human development indicators

P. Sunderarajan

Says national averages of economic growth, human development rendered meaningless

— Photo: Sandeep Saxena

AGAINST INEQUALITIES: Vice-President M. Hamid Ansari, the former Foreign Secretary, Lalit Mansingh (right), and TERI Director-General R.K. Pachauri at the inauguration of “Vision 2025,” in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI: Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Thursday said that the country needed a database of human development indicators for different income groups. The national averages of economic growth and human development had been rendered meaningless as they obscured deep inequalities within the populace.

Inaugurating a two-day conference, organised by TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) to prepare a roadmap for sustainable development of the country, he said: “We have different worlds in the same country — the human development parameters of the richest 20 per cent were way above that of the poorest 20 per cent of the population.”

He said that inequalities in accessing basic health and education perpetuated the vicious cycle of poverty. Inadequate public spending on health and education forced the poor to spend a disproportionate part of their income on these two heads. Otherwise they had to forfeit education and, along with it, the chances for upward social and economic mobility.

He referred to the global concerns over the phenomenon of climate change and said the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capability for reducing the greenhouse gas emission propagated at the global level should also be applied within the country. “We have significant regional and urban/rural variations in economic development and extent of industrialisation. We need to adopt the same position at the national level that we seek at the multi-lateral level.”

The country, he said, needed to generate State-wise data on per capita emissions of greenhouse gases. Urban areas and heavily industrialised States that significantly contributed to the emissions must have different financial and other responsibilities on climate change as compared to rural areas and economically less developed States.

The global structure of dealing with climate change should also, he said, eventually develop local and State-level strata. If the cause of climate change was production and consumption patterns, any study of these patterns could not be limited to nation-States. There was a need to study sub-national patterns. Director of TERI R.K. Pachauri, who is also the Chairman of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change that won the Nobel Peace Prize, said the conference had been designed in such a way to get input from stakeholders on issues such as the second agricultural revolution and rural development; ensuring universal and equitable access to basic services; urban growth; energy security; and effective governance of water resources.

The former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu, Nandan Nilekani of Infosys, Bjorn Stigson of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Bunker Roy of Barefoot College in Rajasthan and environmentalist Chandi Prasad Bhatt participated in the conference.

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