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Lip-service to inclusive growth

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The emphasis in the Approach Paper to the Twelfth Five-Year Plan continues to be on achieving GDP growth of 9-9.5%, with the focus on capital markets and infrastructure, and scarcely a mention of nutritional security, agriculture, sanitation, health and education, writes Kathyayini Chamaraj

Rajamma of Chamarajnagar, Siddamma of Bidar, and Daulat Bi of Bijapur had travelled the whole night to Bangalore and, without eating a morsel the next morning, participated in a Right to Food Campaign-Karnataka protest against the Planning Commission which was in town for the Southern Regional Consultation on the Approach Paper to the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. They asked the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, how the Planning Commission could understand the problems of the poor whilst confabulating on ‘inclusive growth’ in the air-conditioned comfort of a five-star hotel. They asked how he would live on Rs 35 a day in a city like Bangalore -- the supposed poverty line for urban areas, at current prices, extrapolated from the Rs 20 fixed by the Planning Commission in 2004. They also decried the proposed cash transfers in lieu of the public distribution system (PDS). By the time this article is published, the Planning Commission will have completed similar regional consultations across the country.

In the Approach Paper itself, one would have expected to see the analysis from the Mid-Term Review of the Eleventh Plan: why India’s 8-9% GDP growth rate has failed to bring about satisfactory levels of ‘inclusive growth’, and what lessons have been drawn from this to make the necessary correction in the Twelfth Plan’s trajectory to reach the desired goal. But there is no such analysis. There is only the unqualified statement, “We have also seen progress on inclusiveness; but this is less than expected,” giving one the impression that the Mid-Term Review of the Eleventh Plan is an exercise conducted as an end in itself, and has no relevance for the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. 

The emphasis in the Approach Paper continues to be on achieving a GDP growth rate of 9-9.5%. ‘Twelve Strategy Challenges’ have been identified, which seem to have no direct bearing on ‘inclusive growth’. The approach seems to be ‘more of the same’ and ‘business as usual’ with emphasis on “enhancing the capacity for growth through more efficient capital markets”, “higher investment in infrastructure through both public and PPP (public private partnerships) routes”, “markets for efficiency and inclusion”, “accelerated development of transport infrastructure”, and so on. Since GDP growth rates have been comfortable now for several years, is it not time a paradigm shift were made to ensure that GDP growth happens through human development? If inclusive growth is really the intention, shouldn’t the overall target of the Plan be expressed in terms of rates of poverty reduction and human development outcomes?

In a Plan supposed to ensure “more inclusive growth”, there is no discussion on who the poor are, what the basis for a poverty line should be, and what current poverty levels are. If the very baseline data on which the Plan is to be founded is not there, how will the targets be achieved? Should the goals not be more detailed in terms of targets to be achieved in literacy, life expectancy and purchasing power? How the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), to which India has committed itself, are to be reached doesn’t seem to find mention anywhere.

While reams have been written on science and technology, energy, transport and infrastructure, only three lines each have been devoted to the crisis-ridden agriculture sector and the key sectors of health and education. There is no discussion on how agriculture can be made remunerative, the chief cause of farmer suicides. In a country plagued by malnourishment there is no discussion on food security, let alone nutritional security. While paying lip-service to ‘inclusive growth’, the approach throughout is on investment and market-led growth, physical rather than social infrastructure, and on PPPs  rather than a rights-based approach to fulfil the basic needs of nutritional security, housing, water, sanitation, education, health, and social security as a state responsibility.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia betrayed his bias for physical infrastructure over human development by noting that, “there is a tendency to break the Plans down into schemes that most directly benefit individuals. While this is an important part of the social inclusiveness infrastructure, the fact is that the overwhelming bulk of the benefit that will go to the broad mass of the population is really going to come from whether the growth is (a) rapid and (b) inclusive enough, and that really relates to the structural growth, that is to improvement in the quality of infrastructure. The PMGSY does seem to demonstrate that if (road) connectivity is spread, the extent of actual benefit is very large”.

While participants at the consultation were exhorted to make “specific suggestions” on how things were to be achieved, the Approach Paper itself is full of bland ‘vision statements’ not backed by concrete statistics, strategies, targets or resources. For instance, on the vital issue of land and the various raging conflicts around its use, it merely states: “Land development/diversion for various uses (should) be based on a national policy.” On controversial mining activities, it says there is a need to formulate “a sustainable development framework which addresses issues related to economic viability, environmental impact and social concerns”. On forest rights and the ongoing struggle with adivasis, it says blandly: “Current schemes of compensation needs (sic) to be reviewed.”

Another strange process adopted at the consultation was that separate sessions were held with panchayati raj, civil society, business, trade unions and academic groups.  But instead of each of these groups being asked to give their comments on the Twelfth Plan Approach Paper, they were asked to discuss and answer a set of questions each on the workings of panchayati raj institutions, on how civil society could be involved in the Plans, how business could be promoted, etc. And so the consultation ended up not as a discussion about the Approach Paper itself, but as a set of discrete workshops on PRIs, on civil society, and on promoting business. 

One must also ask whether a Plan can be complete without a discussion on how resources will be raised. Should there not be a discussion on the more than Rs 5 lakh crore exemptions in income tax, excise and customs duty being given to the affluent almost every year, and on whether these are deserved when corporate profits are soaring every year? And whether these resources should not be earmarked to mandatorily provide for the basic needs of all to food, shelter and livelihood, and also fulfil the longstanding demand of 6% GDP for education and 3% for health, which is not yet foreseen in the Approach Paper?  

There is, of course, the disclaimer that the Approach Paper should not be viewed as final; that citizens are free to suggest any additions and that “if a challenge is not highlighted separately, it may be because it is wide enough to be covered by several other challenges”. No doubt there will be much serious thought given by the various working groups set up by the Planning Commission to all the issues left out in the Approach Paper. But the paper, as presented, and the consultation process followed, makes one doubt the seriousness of the supposed public consultations that were conducted, at great cost, in five-star hotels, and that mocked the intelligence of participating citizens.

(Kathyayini Chamaraj is Executive Trustee of CIVIC Bangalore)

Infochange News & Features, September 2011