The UNDP’s Human Development Report 2013 has once again focused attention on the definition of economic growth --- namely, is growth to be measured by certain statistical indices, or by the improvement in the quality of life of the people concerned?

The report says economies such as India and China have never “changed so dramatically and so fast”, having doubled the output per capita of these economies within the space of twenty years.

But as far as the Human Development Index is concerned (the HDI being a composite indicator of three equally weighted measures for education, health and income), India – whose per capita output expansion has been described as “unprecedented in speed and scale” – has been placed in the 136th position among 186 countries as far as “command over resources” is concerned. If one takes into account the SAARC countries, Sri Lanka, with a score of 92, emerges as the most “developed” in human terms, while Pakistan and Bangladesh are both at 146, Nepal at 157, Bhutan at 140 and Maldives at 104.

Drivers of development

If this is our position as far as “human development” is concerned in the comity of nations, should we feel proud of our “performance” ? Seen differently, is the “development” presence of India linked more closely to the sheer size of the marketplace India offers to external producers and exporters, rather than to the strength of its own competitiveness as a producer and seller in the world market?

The report has also identified three notable “drivers of development”, namely, “a proactive developmental state, tapping of global markets, and determined social policy innovation”. All Governments at the Centre, irrespective of their political colour, have always claimed that, in all three spheres, they have done sterling work. The ground situation, however, indicates that the effort put in has been far from adequate to produce meaningful results for the man in the field and on the street.

Falling short on delivery

There are two fundamental obstacles standing in the way of a given scale of expenditure producing quick results in Indian conditions, namely, the immense size of the population and the growing weakness of the “delivery system”. This probably explains why much smaller economies which, on the face of it, have nothing to show by way of “real development” — such as the industrial production base — have scored so high in the HDI list. Thus, the hundreds of thousands of crores the Central and State governments have spent on, say, rural healthcare have simply not been enough to make a meaningful impact on the lives of a sufficiently large number of people in view of the size of the population.

The growing weakness of the delivery system is even more worrisome because it concerns the “attitudes” of officials and workers, the vast majority of whom have little or no sense of involvement in their work. The prospect of any improvement in the quality of life in India is getting dimmer with time.

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