The Hindu Business Line : The demographic dividend

This refers to the article "India must leverage the demographic dividend" (Business Line, March 28). India's strategy for leveraging the so-called demographic dividend must be to focus on conversion of economic growth into human development. India is one of the fastest growing economies but it is lagging in human development.

According to the Human Development Report 2006, India is placed 126th in human development indicators in a list of 159 countries. This is a really deplorable position. Education, nutrition and health must be areas of major emphasis if we are to make progress in the area of human development.

Rural non-farm activities, rural services, diversified streams of agriculture, such as horticulture, etc., have to be given importance in order to create jobs for all in Rural India. Such jobs involve physical exertion and, hence, emphasis on health-care is a must.

But, today, rural hospitals often do not have doctors, equipment, and not even essential medicines. Even if there are doctors in some hospitals, they are paid the salaries of clerks — Rs 15,000-20,000, while engineers and even ordinary graduates in the IT sector and the BPO sector get salaries ranging from Rs 30-80,000.

Another issue is the density of doctors, which is only 60 per one lakh population in India, while it is 106 per one lakh population in China.

To truly reap the demographic dividend in the coming years, health-care nutrition and universal education must be given primacy.

K. K. Ammannaya

Udupi

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