Decentralisation of development

Decentralisation of development, to reach its benefits across all geographical regions and social and economic rungs, is the abiding policy goal of fulfilling the ends of distributive justice. Though absolute poverty has reduced over the years and decades, relative poverty has been high and increasing.

Reliance on general industrial and service sector growth has proved to be ineffective in this regard: top 100 companies have generated Rs 38.9 crore additional wealth during 2012-17(Annual wealth creation study by Motilal Oswal).

The fact that there is stagnation in the growth of the organised sector indicates that this expansion has benefited only the top sections of society, leaving the poor where they have been. And to remedy this problem of low development and inequality, social and economic benefits must reach the poor expeditiously. Rural production, investments, schools, training programmes and health facilities have to be focused at the grassroots.

It is clear that little skill education that is developed and available in the country has not benefited the poorer sections in villages.  The poor are unable to access more lucrative, standard, more secure income-yielding jobs. And skill imbibing is slow and indifferent, with mismatch between available skills and their extant, and emerging employment.

Also, fifth grade pupils in government schools are unable to handle even second grade learning material  (Annual Status of Education Report). This shows the efforts and spending have failed to reach schools and training systems - very low levels of budgetary expenditure on the education sector, a problem known and mentioned ad nauseum. The allegedly more effective private school and higher education is becoming less and less accessible and affordable to the poor. Are the policy makers and bureaucrats indifferent  to this, is the pressing question.

The health and nutrition conditions of the poor, women and children are no less unfortunate. While lack of doctors, paramedics, laboratory and medicine facilities, drinking water and sanitation/lavatory facilities ail government hospitals, the more expensive profit-oriented private hospitals are gaining ground and are ubiquitous. Expenditure incurred by the poor and average patients has been increasing. According to the National Health Account, expenditure per person is Rs 3,826 and of this, a patient's private expenditure is Rs 2,394 - 61% of rural and 69% of city patients landed in private hospitals. The government is unable to increase this allocation and for long, Karnataka spent hardly 0.7% of its GSDP on healthcare; and the  national figure is 1.1% of GDP (National Health Profile, 2017). This saga of deficiency does not seem to abate any time soon.

The grassroots scheme

Over the years, governments have developed a tradition, albeit fitfully efficient, of employment/income programmes for the poor. One of the pioneering ones is the Maharashtra employment guarantee programme of the early 70's. And now, it's deliberated all India version is the MNREGS, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. This has been running since 2006 and is credited with a steady increase in rural incomes by nearly 18% annually during 2006-12. Poverty declined by about 12% overall during this period.

This scheme encompasses local rural labour including women as worker beneficiaries and upgrades land leveling, fertility and waterbodies, greening fallow lands and hill slopes, facilitating animal husbandry including access to fodder, fuel and timber. With increased fertility of land, production of more nutritious millets and pulses is possible - an answer to the problem of health, nutrition and productivity.

The MNREGS has to be encouraged regularly. In 2017-18, Rs 48,000 crore had been allotted to the scheme. Now it needs to be substantially augmented so that more unorganised labour in rural areas may be encompassed.

The planning of MNREGS works is policy-wise decided by the local people, who know the specific needs and prospects of the locality; benefits are thus decentralised, and development effort also gets spread across the Indian hinterland. Since local people participate in planning and execution and in monitoring progress, it is eminently an exercise in social grassroots level democracy.

(The writer is former professor, Maharaja's College, University of Mysore, Mysuru)