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New Delhi, July 20 “We should focus more on poverty alleviation than inequality since excessive focus on inequality shifts the centre of attention to the people who create wealth”, said Mr Arvind Panagariya, Professor of Economics, and Mr Jagdish Bhagwati, Professor of Indian Political Economy, Columbia University. At a talk on ‘Sustaining double digit growth’, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, he said the Government should be able to distribute the subsidy as direct payments across the rural and urban belt. “We can transfer huge amount of purchasing power to poor if we consolidate all our subsidies and make direct payments. The poor need help that should not be compared or considered at par with inequality”, said Professor Panagariya.

Talking on agricultural development, he said: “The issue is pulling out large workforce from agriculture to the labour intensive manufacturing sector. Further, we need to go through the education process of the agriculture based manpower to move into service or manufacturing driven economy,” he said. “Agricultural sector can grow only if legislations for price control and intra-state movement of goods are not passed at the state level. The process of development has begun and a few forward looking states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat have already taken the initiative,” he said. The Professor also said that labour market inflexibility is the key problem. “It is because of inflexibility that labour laws, employment is only 8-10 per cent in the organised sector”, he said.

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