India's HDI compared to other countries

Since independence, there has been lot of schemes to alleviate poverty, improve social indicators but still we are lagging behind in HDI. Few of our neighbouring country who are not politically stable, economically not as big as India are ahead of us. What could be the possible reasons of our failures?

Despite being a socialist, pro- poor country ruled by the left- leaning congress party for a long time, what do you think could be the causes for the failure to alleviate poverty?

-          Implementation failure: Failure to effectively implement policies ; improper targeting of schemes plus middlemen presence causing benefits to not reach the intended beneficiaries ; plus

Is implementation failure alone the reason??Are our policies framed well??

-          Centralised policy framing with less consultation with subject experts and lack of public participation in policy framing

Indian states are at various stages of development. Some states are at stage 2, comparable to sub-saharan countries, while some states are at stage 4 of development comparable to Western Europe. Opening tertiary hospitals in Bihar makes no sense when it lacks even the basic public health and sanitation.

So decentralised planning is the need of the hour sir?

So, this one-size-fits-all approach, which is a legacy of the Nehruvian planning era, has faltered badly.

Customised policy for states?

Yes! This realization has made the current government at the Centre to devolve more funds to the states (increased from 32% to 42% of the tax revenue)...

-          Centralised policies do not suit Indian framework. Because needs & aspirations at local level vary greatly.

The developmental needs in north east for example will differ a lot from the needs in Rajasthan. Then there are different local factors which affect the process. For example even within agriculture, treatment of Punjab-Haryana-western up cannot be equated with say Vidarbha region.

Apart from decentralization, what are other reasons???

-          Another major issue is lack of monitoring

-          Impact assessment studies are not done to evaluate the efficacy of prgms

1.      Implementation issues- lack of monitoring, lack of accountability and lack of transparency.

-          Often there is lack of proper monitoring of schemes before rolling out new schemes for the same problem. Third-party assessment should be carried out as much as possible.  Else the problems in previous schemes tend to get carried over to the next scheme. Result hence is not as fruitful as it could have been.

Right! We have been implementing various policies without getting feedback from people. That's where NGOs can play a vital role. NGOs are a great accomplice to the government in 3 spheres- 1. Policy formulation, through expert's opinion.. Which the bureaucracy has turned down very often in the past

2.      Policy implementation- through its ground level staff... Eg:akshaypatra

3. Garnering feedback- by acting as a bridge between government and the people. There are many instances where the government went on implementing things which the people never wanted...

This mai-baap attitude (paternalistic attitude- thinking that it knows what the people need, without asking them) of the government is a big reason for the failure of our poverty alleviation policies

-          Also sir, if we are comparing to the neighbouring countries, for e.g. on public health indicators- our public health expenditure as a percentage of total budget is lower

Poor prioritizing is a problem... We didn't spend enough on health and education, which are the basic areas to be addressed to eliminate poverty.

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka spend more proportion on health than India!

Sir what is the point in simply changing the names of schemes, without analysing its impact?

-          Any exercise in India is a big logistical challenge due to the sheer size of the population... This makes targeting the actual beneficiaries a problem as the parameters differ from state to state

-          Defining poverty has always been a challenge and politically motivated which further leaves marginalised section of the society out of poverty line

-          there has never been any consensus to get one poverty line

In an absolutely poor country like India, defining the poverty line is a great challenge. Improper targeting- inclusion and exclusion errors- has affected the poor adversely!!!

-          true sir in short " inclusion and exclusion errors"

-          the problem of corruption persists. Well-to-do households get bpl cards with the actual beneficiaries getting marginalised. Instances of ghost beneficiary cards created to take away ration meant for the poor

-          I guess this problem will be sorted out now after JAM Trinity which will delete bogus ration card holders and intermediaries

JAM Trinity- a great solution... With technology, we can delete ghost beneficiaries!

As I recall Amartya Sen, “The schemes for the poor are poorly thought out, poorly designed and poorly implemented!" Why so?

-          1. Policy formulation involve populism efforts more

-          2. Lack of expert advices and influence of ministers on experts

-          Sir, because poor are not involved in decision making and redressal, feedback mechanisms

-          Because the schemes most often rolled out with electoral motives tend to hand out doles without focussing on creation of social infrastructure which would have a much greater impact if done

Those who make or implement policies for poor are not poor. So, they are not the beneficiaries of those schemes.. Hence, they don't care much about it(saying in a crude fashion).. If a district collector's son studies in a Panchayat union school, will those government teachers come late?? If all top bureaucrats and ministers have to first go to their neighbourhood PHC, will there be problems of health workers' absenteeism?

That is why a stakeholder approach is necessary!

Lack of reliable data and lack of evidence-based policy making has been a great bane. Our decisions are heuristic rather than data-based!

- In Brief, Reasons for failures in poverty alleviation are :

1. Poor targeting and implementation - inefficient administrative setup, inadequate statistical support.

2. Faulty Monitoring and review process of scheme.

3. Top-down scheme formulation and lack of evidence-based approach in policy making.

4. No or very less community involvement in implementation.

5. Corruption, red-tapism at lower level of bureaucracy.

6. Institutional penetration of finances, social security not adequate.

7. Policy/schemes are not demand driven rather imposed on masses.