JRD Tata Oration Eight

JRD Tata Oration Eight



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JRD TATA
.
MEMORIAL ORATION
191
EIGHTH
FEBRUARY 3, 2003
!
J.fJ.fJ.
POPULATION FOUNDATION OF INDIA
New Delhi

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JRD Tata
Founder Chairman
~.
Population Foundation of India
(July 29, 1904 - November 29, 1993)

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JRD TATA
MEMORIAL ORATION
EIGHTH
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Leader of Opposition (Rajya Sabha)
on
POPULATION, POVERTY AND
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
FEBRUARY 3, 2003
POPULATION
~
J.fJ.tJ.
FOUNDATION
New Delhi
OF INDIA

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Preface
Established in the year 1970, by a dedicated group of
industrialists and population activists led by Bharat Ratna,
the late Mr JRD Tata, Population Foundation of India has
dedicated itself to the cause of Reproductive and Child Health
(RCH) and other programmes.
Being a pioneer organization for funding and promoting
population related activities in the country, the Foundation
has displayed a vision since its inception to make planning
for small families a socially acceptable and sustainable
behaviour norm. Its activities have reached beyond family
planning to reproductive and sexual health and rights, HIV/
AIDS, child health & rights, women's health, adolescent
health & development, and female foeticide. Its commitment
and work for the welfare of people at large, has placed it
amongst the leading non-government organizations at the
national level.
As a part of its advocacy programme, Population
Foundation of India instituted in 1990 "Encounter with
Population Crisis", a lecture series inviting important
(i)

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International and Indian celebrities to deliver lectures once a
year to focus on critical issues related to population and
development and to carry the debate forward.
Since 1995, the lecture series was re-christened as "JRD
Tata Memorial Oration" in memory of the founder of the
Foundation and were delivered by Mr Ramakrishna Hegde,
followed by Mr Chandra Shekhar, Dr Najma Heptulla, Mr I
K Gujral, Dr Nafis Sadik, Mr K C Pant and Shri Digvijay Singh.
According to UNFP A report on the state of world
population 2002, development has often bypassed the poorest
people, and has even increased their disadvantages. The poor
need direct action to bring them into the development process
and create the conditions for them to escape from poverty.
The world's nations agreed in 1994 that population and
development is central to this purpose.
To carry the debate forward on this issue, this year we
invited Dr Manmohan Singh, Member of Parliament and
Leader of Opposition (Rajya Sabha) to deliver the Eighth JRD
Tata Memorial Oration on "Population, Poverty and
Sustainable Development". Dr Manmohan Singh has received
multifarious honours, awards and degrees from a number of
universities and institutions in India as well as abroad. He
has held many important positions including the Union
Finance Minister in the early 90' s.
I am sure, this eighth JRD Tata Memorial Oration will
stimulate the Government and Non-Government
Organisations to come forward together through a
(ii)

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coordinated and integrated approach to achieve better results
in population stabilisation, poverty and sustainable
development.
New Delhi
February 25, 2003
A R Nanda
Executive Director
(iii)

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Eighth JRD Tata Memorial Oration
Address by
Dr Bharat Ram, Chairman, PFI
Dr Manmohan Singhji and distinguished friends,
Population Foundation of India is
honoured to have Dr Manmohan
Singh, an eminent economist, formerly
Finance Minister of India and now
Member of Parliament and Leader of
Opposition (Rajya Sabha), in our midst
to deliver the Eighth JRD Tata
Memorial Oration in memory of the
late Shri JRD Tata. It was actually under
Mr JRD Tata's initiative that the
Foundation instituted the lecture series
in 1990under the title "Encounter with Population Crisis". In
the Silver Jubilee year of the Foundation in 1995, this lecture
series was re-christened as "JRD Tata Memorial Oration".
The Population Foundation of India, as most of you may
know, was established in 1970 by a group of socially
committed industrialists, the late MrJ R D Tata, myself and a
few others. Mr Tata carried on a relentless crusade for the
promotion of family planning. He realized the importance
of Family Planning for improving the standard of living of
the people. He also considered the role of non-government
organization as important for the success of family planning.
Since 1970, the Foundation has been in the forefront of non-
government efforts to promote and fund population related
activities in the country. Its activitie's have reached beyond
family planning and the immediate concern with
contraceptives; to holistic reproductive and child health
programmes, under the wider canvas of population and
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development.
Currently our population size is estimated at 1.05billion.
We are growing at an annual rate of 1.73 per cent. The
percentage decadal growth of the country as a whole has
declined from 23.86during 1981-91to 21.34during 1991-2001
- a fall in India's decadal growth rate by 2.52 percentage
points, which is the sharpest decline since independence.
However, it is a matter of serious concern that population
growth has not come down to the desired level, particularly
in the socio-demographically backward states comprising
about 40% of the country's population. Though life expectancy
has increased from 56 years in 1996 to 63.7 in 2002, but it is
less as compared to 71.9 in Sri Lanka, and 76.8 in USA.
According to the Human Development Report 2002 of
UNDP, India ranks 124 among 173 countries in Human
Development Index, which combines education, health and
economic growth. When we talk of education, there are still
296 million absolute illiterates in the country according to
2001 census. Around 40 per cent of the population is living
below the poverty line.
As we all know, stabilizing population is an essential
requirement for promoting sustainable development with
more equitable distribution. Sustainable development is very
closely linked with gender, equity and equality.
Unfortunately, adequate steps were not taken to tackle the
issue of population stabilization and sustainable development
immediately after independence.
The Population Foundation of India has played an
important role in advocating and lobbying with successive
Prime Ministers, political parties and Members of Parliament
on the urgency and enormity of the problem. The suggestions
put forth by the Foundation through such efforts have
fortunately been considered by the Government in
formulation of the National Population Policy.
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The National Population Policy, 2000 has taken into
consideration the issue of population and development in a
holistic and comprehensive manner. Population stabilization
has been recognised as a multi-sectoral endeavour requiring
constant and effective dialogue among a diversity of
stakeholders, and coordination at all levels of the government
and society. Spreading of literacy and education, increasing
the availability of affordable and quality reproductive and
child health services, convergence of service delivery at
village levels, participation of '\\lomen in the paid work force,
together with a steady improvement in family incomes have
been envisaged in this Policy.
Dr Manmohan Singh is here with us to share his thoughts
on the topic "Population, Poverty and Sustainable
Development". Although he needs no introduction, I would
like to say a few v~Tordsabout him and about the wonderful
work he has been doing. He is among those handful of our
country's citizens whom destiny itself so shapes as to become
an institution in a life-time.
Hailed from West Punjab, he attained a brilliant
academic career at home and abroad. Dr Manmohan Singh
has received multifarious honours, awards and degrees from
a number of universities and instihltions in India as well as
abroad. He has represented India in Asian Development
Bank, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. He was
Governor, Reserve Bank of India and Deputy ChiJirman,
Planning Commission. As a Union Finance 11inister during
1991-96 he 'vvas in fact the architect of the economic
liberalization process.
There is no end to his accomplishments. l'vIore than
anything else, he is one of the finest gentlemen I have ever
met in my life. May I now request you, Manrnohan Singhji to
deliver the Oration?
.
,.)..,

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POPULATION, POVERTY AND SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
February 3,2003 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Leader of Opposition (Rajya Sabha)
I am very grateful to Dr. Bharat
Ram and the Population Foundation
of India for inviting me to deliver
this Lecture which seeks to
commemorate the memory of Shri
J.R.D. Tata, one of the greatest
captains of Indian Industry in the
twentieth century. Shri Tata was a
great visionary who drew our attention
to the impact of uncontrolled fertility
on the pace of social and economic development and the
role various institutions of the civil society could play in
creating awareness of the population dimension of
development.
The relation between population growth, persistence
of mass poverty and the progressive deterioration of our
environment is indeed very complex. The old Malthusian
view that overpopulation is the sole or the basic cause of
poverty needs to be qualified in several ways.
Technological progress has made an impressive
contribution to expanding the production frontier even in
agriculture where the law of diminishing returns was
expected to find its most rigorous application. For example,
thanks to the progressive increases in irrigation and
fertilizer application and the new hybrid seeds, food
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production since the launching of the Green Revolution
in the 1960s has more than kept pace with population
growth both in India and the world as a whole, even
though this by itself has not been sufficient to abolish
hunger.
In the same way, population growth is not the only
or the most important factor giving rise to the world wide
concern about the degradation of our environment and
the threat to the essential life support systems of our
planet. It is now recognised that the production and
consumption patterns associated with the processes of
modernisation, and, in particular, the progressive increase
in the use of commercial energy, have contributed much
more to the environmental degradation than population
growth in itself. Furthermore, although technical progress
has very often promoted the use of new production and
consumption patterns, it has also a great potential to
arrest the degradation of our environment.
Despite these qualifications, it is now generally agreed
that changes in population growth, age structure and
spatial distribution interact closely with the environment
and development and that human population has to be
an important constituent of the sustainable development
agenda.
India has a population of over one billion which is
increasing at an annual rate of about 18 million. We face
a formidable challenge in getting rid of the chronic poverty,
ignorance and disease which afflict millions of people in
our country. A credible national strategy for the removal
of mass poverty requires a strong commitment to the
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acceleration of economic growth and the expansion of
employment opportunities in the framework of a
sustainable use of our natural resources. Viewed in this
perspective, rapid population growth has serious
implications for a successful attack on mass poverty as
well as on our ability to protect and repair the
environment. A rapidly increasing population implies an
excessively young population leading to a rise in the
dependency ratio (ratio of children and other non working
age population to total population). This affects the
national savings rate and reduces the amount of investible
resources available for increasing investments in health,
education and infrastructure. Increased labour productivity
which is crucial for raising living standards often requires
a progressive increase in capital per head. Rapid
population growth affects this process of capital
accumulation.
India is still largely an agricultural country with over
60 per cent of our labour force being engaged in
agriculture. Ours is a country with a long history of
settled cultivation. Both because of this factor and very
rapid growth of population since Independence, India
cannot be considered as well endowed with land and
other natural resources measured on a per capita basis.
There is hardly any scope for increasing the area under
cultivation. In fact, with the progress of industrialisation
and urbanisation, there will be less area available for
agriculture. There is of course' a substantial scope for
increasing the productivity of land. However, further
increases in agricultural production will require substantial
capital investments in irrigation, land and water
conservation and upgrada tion of agricultural technologies.
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With a smaller increase in population, the task of increasing
agricultural production on a sustainable basis \\vill be less
arduous. The important point is that a fast increasing
population leads to a significant diversion of national
investible resources for current consumption which could
othenvise be used for increasing investment and
productivity and for improving the quality of basic social
services such as education, health, sanitation, provision of
safe drinking water and for control of environmental
degradation. Thus a rapidly increasing population
constitutes a distinct handicap in effective planning for a
rise in living standards on a sustainable basis. Therefore,
moderating the rate of population grO\\vth \\-vith a vie\\\\'
to attain the goal of population stabilisation in a reasonably
short period of time is an important aspect of
management of development, in particular human
resource development.
Thanks to rapid advances in medical sciences, death
rates everywhere show a strong declining tendency even
at a relatively hw level of development. Thus, unless
deliberate measures are adopted to reduce the birth rate,
the rate of population growth will have a tendency to rise.
In recognition of this fact, right from the beginning the
Indian Five Year Plans have laid considerable emphasis
on reduction of fertility through a voluntary and \\villing
acceptance of small family norm. India was the first
developing cou ntry to launch a State sponsored
programme of providing family planning services in 1952.
In the last fiftv"' "v' ears, there has been considerable
gro'yvth of a\\vareness about the need for family planning
as weU as in the availabiJity and outreach of family
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planning services. Since early 1950s, there has been a
considerable decline in total fertility rate (from 6.0 in
1951 to 3.3 in 1997) even though it has so far made only
a marginal impact on the overall rate of population growth.
Also, in a number of States, total fertility rate is fast
approaching close to the replacement level of 2.1.
However, the overall picture, particularly in the northern
States is still a cause of concern. Most analysts believe
that the goal of reaching the replacement level of total
fertility (2.1) by 2010 as stated in the "National Population
Policy 2000" is unrealistically high. Thus, it is time for a
review of both the overall strategy and programme content
of national policies having a bearing on total fertility
rate.
In discussing issues relating to the regulation of fertility,
the role of incentives and disincentives and the need for
an element of compulsion invariably crop up. My own
view is that incentives and disincentives can have only a
marginal impact and at times can be counter-productive.
Furthermore, coercion of any kind in this regard will be
unacceptable in a democracy. A sensible approach to the
regulation of fertility must respect the fundamental rights
of parents to make informed choices about the number of
children they wish to have and the type of spacing they
would prefer in deciding about their family size. It is
now generally agreed that what we need is a holistic and
integrated approach which places control of fertility in
the broader context of evolving an effective development
strategy focussing on the reduction of poverty, increasing
the access of the poor to basic social services such as
education and health and on institutional reforms focussing
more sharply on improving the social and economic
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status of women as a means to enhance their ability for
autonomous decision making regarding issues which have
a bearing on their well being, including the choice about
family size and spacing of child births. Systematic advance
on all these fronts is necessary if there is to be meaningful
progress to reach the replacement level of total fertility
ratio of 2.1 in a reasonably short period of time.
The proposition that population stabilisation policies
cannot be designed in isolation and that they have to be
integrated into the framework of social and economic
development strategies and programmes as a whole is
now widely accepted. In this context, first and foremost
is the role of a credible framework for the reduction of
poverty. This in turn is closelY,linked to the output and
employment strategies, the arrangements for the provision
of basic social services such as education and health and
the effectiveness of arrangements for the provision of
social safety nets to enable people to cope with unforeseen
contingencies. It is also essential that the chosen growth
strategy must be environment friendly and it should not
lead to degradation of our land, water and air. To that
end, environment concerns need to be built into the
strategies for sustainable agricultural and industrial
growth, management of urbanisation processes, including
waste disposal and promotion of sustainable energy use.
It is also necessary to recognize that integrating
environmental concerns into' all major development
processes will at least in the short to medium term lead
to an increase in capital requirements and therefore, a
higher rate of investment associated with a given growth
rate. In analysing the growth and poverty strategies and
programmes, it is also necessary to pay adequate attention
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to the efficiency and effectiveness of processes of
governance which have a crucial bearing on the
effectiveness of development policy framework. The moral
is that it is no use laying down ambitious goals about
population stabilisation if the overall economy is not
growing fast enough, anti-poverty programmes suffer
from massive leakages, and delivery systems for the
provision of basic social services are poorly designed
and implemented.
All this is common place. Yet these crucial aspects
of development do not receive sufficient attention in
Parliament or in State legislatures. At the national level,
Government talks in terms of a growth target of 8 per
cent for the Tenth Five Year Plan while most observers
are agreed that with the existing policies we can at best
achieve a growth rate of no more than 6 per cent in the
medium term. The observed deceleration of progress
towards poverty reduction in the 1990s and processes
which have contributed to this outcome has not received
adequate attention. Moreover, inadequate attention has
been focussed on the sharp deterioration in the quality
of governance and the growing ineffectiveness of systems
of public administration to meet the challenge of change
which is now so visible in a large number of States. The
fast deteriorating fiscal situation both at the Centre and
the States is only a telling manifestation of the basic malady
of mis-governance. With unsustainable fiscal deficits at
the Centre and in the States (now exceeding ten per cent
of GDP), the Government's ability to increase public
investment or to increase public expenditure on basic
social services is seriously in doubt. Given these trends,
only halting progress can be made to address issues of
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mass poverty, population stabilisation and sustainable
development.
In a democracy, alert public opinion can provide
powerful correctives. I, therefore, suggest that growth,
employment and poverty reduction targets of the Tenth
Five Year Plan should be given not only for the Union as
a whole but also for each State. It should be obligatory
both for the Central Government and the State
Governments to submit to their legislatures an annual
progress report on poverty reduction, policies in place
and their effectiveness. The legislature must set aside
adequate time for discussion of these reports. The National
Development Council must also meet regularly to review
these reports, assess the situation and recommend
appropriate remedial measures.
We all know that poverty is particularly acute
among the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and
minorities. We have also in place mechanisms like tribal
and scheduled castes component and sub plans. Also, we
have statutorily established national commissions
highlighting the problems of these marginalised
communities. Yet their reports hardly invite any attention.
Time has come when these commissions ought to submit
to Parliament professionally competent annual reports on
the state of poverty and other social disabilities faced by
these communities
and also outline practical
recommendations to tackle their problems. Parliament must
find time to debate the findings of these reports.
As is well known, progress in education and health,
particularly in field of female literacy and control of
infant and child mortality is vital for creating an
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atmosphere conducive to the voluntary and willing
acceptance of small family norm. Available studies of
demographic behaviour in rural areas suggest that
education of women beyond the primary level and child
mortality have the strongest relationship with fertility.
These studies also suggest that policies attempting to
provide merely functional literacy to women may not be
sufficient to induce fertility decline and that eight or
more years of education are required for this purpose.
Moreover, women's education is also associated with
improved prospects for child survival and some studies
have suggested that the survival rate of children of women
with eight or more years of education may be higher than
that of the children of the highest per capita income
decile. Thus improving women's ability to care for their
children through education could have a greater impact
on child mortality than the far more difficult task of
raising everyone's income to the top decile. There is also
further evidence that education of women is also
associated with a rise in the age at marriage as also with
a rise in women's age at the first birth of a child.
The National Population Policy 2000 explicitly
mentions a number of socio-economic goals for 2010 as
essential to the reduction of total fertility rate.
(a) Free and compulsory school education up to the
age of14 and reduction of drop outs at primary and
secondary schools to below 20 percent.
(b) Reduction of infant mortality rates to below 30 per
1000 live births.
(c) Reduction of maternal mortality rate to below 100
per 100000 live births.
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(d) Universal immunization of children against all
vaccine preventable diseases.
(e) Achievement of 80 per cent institutional deliveries
and 100 per cent deliveries by trained persons.
(f) Prevention and control of communicable diseases.
(g) Containing the. spread of AIDS.
Since the adoption of the National Population Policy
in 2000, Parliament has passed a Constitutional
Amendment Bill making elementary education from the
age of 6 to 14 a fundamental right. If this right is to
become a reality, it is essential that adequate financial
resources are made available for supplying all unmet
needs and also that these resources are put to optimum
use. Some years ago, a Committee under Dr. Tapas
Mazumdar had made a realistic assessment of additional
resources which needed to be mobilized to universalize
access to elementary education. The Government has
however, not accepted this assessment. There is a
widespread feeling that the available official data
understate both the number of children outside the
formal school system and also the number of drop outs.
The dismal fiscal picture both at the Centre and in the
States is a weU documented fact. Many State Governments \\
have resorted to provision of adhoc substandard
arrangements to meet the educational needs of
marginalised communities. As a result, literacy rates may
go up but whether these children can be called educated
in the proper sense of the term is highly doubtful.
There is a real danger that the current approach to
educational planning in India may further increase the
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already huge gap between classes and masses in terms
of access to educational opportunities. This approach
runs counter to all basic notions of social equity and the
ideal of equality of opportunity. The right to education
will become a reality only if all children, particularly
those from disadvantaged communities are provided
quality education which enables them to overcome their
inherited disadvantage of very often being the first
generation learners. The honest way out is to make a
realistic estimate of the likely cost of providing quality
elementary. education to all our children and to find ways
and means to mobilise the needed resources. Of course,
. as pointed out in the recently published Pratichi Education
Report on the functioning of primary schools in West
Bengal, our school system is riddled with inefficiency,
leading to poor quality of instruction. Ways must be
found to meet the challenge of providing the needed
additional resources to finance all the unmet needs and
also to undertake systematic reforms to improve the
functioning of the public school system in our country.
In this context, I suggest that a suitable cess be
levied on all central taxes to mobilise additional resources
which are needed to operationalise the fundamental
right of each and every child to free elementary education.
I further suggest that the Government set up a permanent
Education Commission which will be charged with the
responsibility of allocating the proceeds of this cess among
States on the basis of objective criteria. This Commission
should also be required to review the functioning of
school systems in different States and make suitable
recommendations for improving their effectiveness. The
Commission should make an annual report which ought
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to be discussed both by Parliament and State Legislatures
and also by the National Development Council. It is only
then that we will have a reasonable assurance that the
educational underpinning of the National Population
Policy are well and truly in place.
As regards the state of the national health care
system, the present state of affairs provides no assurance
that the socio-demographic goals in the health sector
mentioned in the National Population Policy 2000 are
going to be easily realised. Currently, the country does
not have a coherent integrated health policy to achieve
these goals. The national system of primary health care,
impressive on paper, is largely dysfunctional. Rural India
continues to be very poorly served by the health care
system. Currently, the public sector expenditure on health
is less than one per cent of our GDP and there is no
evidence that the Central and State Governments are
seriously thinking of increasing the resource flow to this
sector to meet the socio-demographic goals mentioned
above. The current hospital centered health care system
with its primary emphasis on curative aspects is indeed
very expensIve.
The acute resource scarcity in the public sector is
leading to the growing privatisation of health care
arrangements which the poor can ill afford to access. We
now face a situation where the elite groups are becoming
increasingly insensitive to the poor quality of health care
provided by the fund starved public sector health care
system on which the great majority of the poor people
must invariably rely.
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The current approach to meeting the educational
and health care needs of our people is widening the
socio-economic distance between the poor and the rich
and the super rich. One consequence of this state of
affairs is that the health care needs of the poor, particularly
those in rural areas and living in urban slums will not
be attended to. Therefore, socio-demographic goals for
2010 mentioned in the National Population Policy may
well remain mere paper promises. If so, the transition to
the stabilisation of population will be further prolonged.
The nation has to recognize that we need a well
functioning and publicly funded primary health care
system and a nationwide system of health insurance against
serious illness to realise the goal of health for all. The
responsibilities of the public sector in this regard cannot
be wished away. As a minimum, our medium term
objective should be to raise public spending on health to
2 per cent of our GDP, as recommended by a WHO
Commission on Macro Economics and Health in 2001.
The National Health Policy 2002 document mentions this
as one of the goals to be achieved by 2000-2015. It is
necessary to adopt concrete measures to operationalise
this commitment.
I now come to the role of improving the social and
economic status of women in our society as an important
aid to population stabilisation. I have already referred to
the need to educate the girl child. It is also very important
to give our women an honoured place in the employment
market. The subtle and not so subtle discrimination which
women face at the work place has to be firmly dealt with.
Simultaneously, the political and socio-economic processes
which will help the process of empowerment of our
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women need to be given all possible encouragement.
Our inheritance and succession laws should not in any
way discriminate against women. To give women a greater
say in the political sphere, public opinion ought to be
mobilised to induce Parliament to pass the legislation
which will give women 33 per cent representation in
Parliament and in State legislatures.
At the same time, it ought to be emphasised that
merely passing laws is not enough. We know that over 50
per cent of girls are married before the age of 18 even
though the minimum legal age of marriage is 18, resulting
in a typical reproductive pattern of "too early, too frequent,
too many" children. We have to mobilise the civil society
to wage a relentless campaign against social customs and
practices which assign women a lower status in social
and economic life. A nation wide reform movement has
to be launched to get rid of the strong discrimination
against the girl child built into our social and cultural
practices. The adverse sex ratio which is an important
persistent aspect of our demographic scene is a telling
manifestation of this deplorable state of affairs. The
National Commission for Women has to assume a more
proactive role in support of improving the status of
women in our national life. Parliament must also find
time to debate these issues more intensively. Once our
women are freed from their traditional shackles, they will
be in a better position to take autonomous decisions
suiting their well being including the number of children
they wish to have and spacing thereof.
Finally, it is now generally agreed that effective
strategies for sustainable development, poverty reduction,
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human resource development and protection of
environment must allow for maximum possible
decentralisation in designing and implementing them taking
into account specific resource endowment, constraints
and potentialities of different regions and localities.
Decentralisation can be an important means to increase
both efficiency and accountability of development
programmes.
By now, we have considerable district-wise data on
the socio-demographic profile. These data can be of
valuable assistance in preparing district socio-economic
development plans. The Panchayati Raj institutions and
their functionaries need to be fully involved in the
preparation and implementation of these plans. For this
purpose, the Panchayati Raj institutions must have
adequate financial powers as well as administrative
capacity to discharge their responsibility. Currently, the
situation in this regard cannot be considered satisfactory.
Because of limited devolution of funds from the higher
tiers of Government and inability as well as reluctance to
mobilise local resources, they lack adequate financial
resources to do justice to their mandate. Moreover, with
a low level of human resource development, they do not
have the necessary capacity to accomplish the role and
responsibilities entrusted to them. A good deal of effort
is needed to improve their absorptive capacity. There
must also be built in safeguards to prevent the emergence
of a corrupt nexus between elected members, the
bureaucracy and locally influential people.
Overall, we have to create an effective environment
for the Panchayats and the Municipalities to set their own
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agenda for local level development and implement it
effectively. It is only then that decentralisation can
become a major force for efficient and equitable people
centred development.
.
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Questions and Answers
Q. Dr Pramod Samantaray, National Consultant,
Professional Development Programme - Sponsored by
GOl & European Commission (NIHFW).
We all understand sustainable development is probably
the only means to bridge the gap between the poor and
the rich. Honourable Dr Manmohan Singh stressed upon
massive leakage as one of the most important factors in
mis-utilization of the national exchequer. If sustainable
development should be the objective of the nation, then
who should function as the nodal functionary?
Government in power, Le. Union as well as the
constituent state governments or the people under the
banner of the Panchayati Raj or both? Who should be
held responsible for investment from the national
exchequer not being upto the declared or pre estimated
indicators?
A. Dr Manmohan Singh
Sustainable development can become a living reality only
if all segments of the thinking popula tion in our country
are deeply involved in implementing it. Government as
the custodian of the public interest has to playa
leading role but the civil society has also a major
responsibility. The public sector in our country accounts
for about 25% of the country's national income. Thus
environmental concerns have to be built into all
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production processes in the public sector. In addition,
the Government has the responsibility to lay down
norms which have to be foJlowed by the private
sector. Unless rest of the civil society conducts its affairs
consistent with these norms, sustainable development
will remain a buzz \\'.'ord. Therefore there is an important
role of the Government. We need regulations, laying of
norms for sensible conduct. But we need to do these
without bringing back the 'licence permit rnj'. We must
devise decentralised mechanisms \\\\There there wiJI be
premium on acting sensibly consistent with the
environmental imperatives. We have to operate on
several layers, the important role is of the civil society
institutions and also all the tiers of the government.
Q. Prof. Ehsanul Haq, Clzairperso1t, Centre for Social
System, JNU
1. What would be your response to the decline in the
gender ratio in our country? These declines are
raising a finger against the kind of development,
which has taken place in our country.
ii. You have very rightly said that there is a negative
correlation between over population and capital
accumulation. Whether over population is really
affecting the capital accumulation or the capital
accumulation is affectcd by the kind of resource
distribution of our country, \\vhich one is more
important? The Wt1ythe resources <lredistributed in
our country, are they adversely t1ffecting capital
accumulation or the growth of population?
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iii. Populationl of course is growing and you have
rightly said that there is some decline in population
growth although it is marginal. Butl is it possible
that in the near future we can reduce population
growth and whether is it possible without any
decline in the infant mortality rate? Recent figures
have shown that it has gone up by 1% in even most
developed states. 501 without reducing infant
mortality rate can we reduce the fertility rate?
A. Dr Manmohan Singh
Can I answer your last question first? I said in my lecture
that you cannot create environment conducive to the
reduction in the birth rates if you do not reduce the infant
mortality rate. I quoted the National Population Policy
statement of 2000 that we must reduce this ratio from 71
per thousand live births to 30 by the year 2010. 501 the
answer iSIwithout reduction in the infant mortality ratel
you cannot achieve the objectives on the population
stabilisation front that you have mentioned.
The second question was the relation between capital
accumulation and growth of population. Nowl the
honest answer to your question is that in social sciences
all short sentences have their limitations. I said right in
the beginning that I do not believe that for all the problem
areas of this country -whether on the development front
or on the environmental front - we can put the blame
only on population; but having said that if our
population were growing at a smaller pacel the task of
managing development dealing with povertYI and
raising the standard of living of our people would have
been easier than it has turned out to be.
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Now the first question that you asked was about the
adverse sex ratio. I did point out in my lecture that the
situation that prevails in our country is not a healthy
situation. There are deep-rooted social and economic
factors in our country. Our country has an ancient culture
and civilization with many wonderful characteristics, but
itis also a fact that in many traditional societies including
our own, there are social and cultural practices, which
place a much lower value on the life of a female child
than a n<ale child. Therefore ","ehave to mobilise all
segments of the civil society, including religious leaders
to wage a war against all social practices which
discriminate against \\vomen. The government has also
to playa role in looking afresh at succession laws,
inheritance laws, etc. so that there is no discrimination
against women. Empowerment of women ~as to be a
high national priority.
Q. Dr J BhagyalaksJl1ui, Freelauce Journalist [1'Media
Consultant
I would like to draw your attention to population, poverty
and sustainable development. These are three large
areas. As far as our government is concerned, three
different Ministries are handling these three issues and
there is no proper convergence or integration. How to
brilw0 about effectiveness in the entire sy- stem?
A. Dr Manmohan Singh
Whether \\ve deal with agriculture or we deal v.lith rural
development or social issues the ,vay the government
departments are divided, a t1O1isticattitude is missing
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for tackling these problems. I recall in the 70s, the Ministry
of Agriculture, Irrigation and Civil Supplies used to be
handled by Babu Jagjivanram and that Ministry
functioned far more effectively than the many successive
Ministries carved out of the then existing Ministry of
Agriculture, Food and Civil Supplies. We have separate
departments dealing with urban poverty, rural poverty,
social justice and empmverment. All these programmes
therefore dissipate our energies often in contradictory
directions. Institutions like the Planning Commission can
playa very important role because they can take an
integrated view of inter-linked problems and
implementation strategies thereof. We have several
ministries dealing \\<vith poverty. We have several
ministries which deal with energy such as petroleum and
natural gas, coat renewable sources of energy, electricity
etc. The result is that it becomes very difficult to take an
integrated and holistic view of the national energy
policies.
Participant's Observation
I would like to make a very smal1 observation that
economic background and economics is very much
important in terms of requiring the resources for
implementation of various programmes at various levels.
But, what is needed is to have some consensus at the
party level, to give irnportance to population, poverty
and sustainable development issues, particularly in their
election manifestos. I think, rarelv, \\ve a(>e(that much of
support. \\Nhat are your observations on this particular
issue?
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Dr Manmohan Singh
I agree with you. Let us take the case of education. If we
look at the election manifestos of all political parties
during last elections, all political parties have committed
themselves to spending 6% of our CDP on education.
Even then the ratio hovers around 3.5 -3.7%. Now with
regard to health policy, the government has now
committed itself to raise the public spending on health
from 0.8% of our CDP at present, to 2% of our CDP by
2010, as recommended by the WHO. So, there is a great
deal of consensus when it comes to writing election
manifestos, but what happens thereafter is that those
who are nearer the centre of power, their capacity to get
a larger size of the resource flows is much greater than
that of the disadvantaged, marginalised sections about
whose plight political parties become aware of only at
election times.
Q. Mr Rajiv Kumar from Freedom Movement Society
Why political parties are not concerned with the issue of
population in India? Since emergency, no political leader
or political party has raised this issue? Would you like to
share some of your views on this?
A. Dr Manmohan Singh
You are right. Most political parties after the experience
of the emergency shied away from a coercive type of
approach, and I do not see coercion of any type will work
in our country. It is not correct to say that political parties
are not concerned about the population dimension.
Several states have an enacted legislation, where no
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member can be elected to panchayats if he has more
than two children. We can do more, but we have to
mobilise the civil society. It is not correct to say that
political parties today are not concerned about the
population problem. Even State-wise allocation of
seats in our Parliament has shown sensitivity to the
population problem since the mid 70s. The broad
national consensus has been those states, who do well
in family planning and population control, they should
not be penalized when it comes to their representation
in Parliament. I would like to respectfully submit that it
is not true that political parties are not aware about the
population dimension of development.
Q. Dr Shanti Ghosh, renowned health specialist
Everybody gets very frightened about population figures
and population rise, and every now and then the
incentives and disincentives debate starts. Even after the
release of National Population Policy, in which it is said
that number is not the issue, I am afraid, it is still coming
through side ways in our discussions. Even the
uneducated, illiterate women in villages by and large,
know that they should not have a very large family, but
they are not having any easy access to health services.
National Family Health Survey has revealed that 20-25%
of the women became pregnant because there was no
easy access to health services. By easy access means they
did not have to travel for two days to reach the health
worker. They do not want the pregnancy and go for a
back street abortion and very often die in the process. I
think we have to back up our health services in support
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of family planning. Health and family planning are not
two separate things. They are one thing and I am glad
that they are under one Ministry. All the other things are
fine such as education, age at marriage etc. When we
come down to the bottom level, it is the service
availability to the poor family, poor women which is most
important. What is your opinion?
A. Dr Manmohan Singh
I entirely agree and I spent a good deal of my lecture on
that very theme. In rural India, the state of the primary
health care system is an issue of very serious concern. A
very large segment of our rural population does not have
access to the type of primary health care system, which
they need for effective healthcare including planning of
one's family. That is why I said that the present level of
total public sector $pending both at the central and at
the state level on public health which is less than 1% of
our GDP is grossly inadequate. The current trend is
towards growing privatization rather than improving the
quality and the reach of the public health services. I
believe there is no alternative in Indian conditions except
to strengthen the public health system and to make it
more effective.
Q. Mr L.S.Bhat, Indian Statistical Institute, formerly in the
field of regional planning.
I am more concerned with the decentralised planning
which everybody now considers as very important but
at the same time the 73,dand 74thamendments have put
the cart before the horse. Nearly 80% of the people who
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are involved in planning would be the elected
representatives, who have hardly any knowledge about
the local resources. Sustainable development, as we all
know, has a long term perspective too. It is over here
that we, the professionals are not lacking in any
competency in terms of utilising the data or even new
technology that are knocking at our doors. But if the 80%
of the elected representatives are to prepare the plans,
which will mostly be local and often not location-specific
ones. So, what is the role of the professionals in preparing
what you rightly said as the district socio-economic
development plan in a perspective of sustainable model?
Here I was reminded of a statement saying that the
professional planners' role is that of a cart which does
not know the intentions of the horse and the driver.
.. Dr Manmohan Singh
The constitutional amendments do mention the need to
set up effective district planning mechanisms as part of
our commitment under the 73rdand 74thamendments to
the Constitution. We need active involvement of the
people's representatives in processes of development.
But that does not mean that the professionals will not
have a role. We live in a world where technology and
demand conditions are changing at a very fast pace.
Therefore, we need professional expert advice. This
professional advice ought to be available to people's
representatives in the Panchayati Raj Institutions so
that they can take well informed discussions. What is
necessary in my view is to marry technical expertise with
a sense of accountability and that sense of accountability
can come only if the people's representatives have also a
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say in what is being done in their names and for the
welfare of the people.
Q. MrS. v: Sista, Population First
My question to you Sir is what can be done, with the
implementation process as you have very rightly
admitted that we are going wrong here. What to do to
get the bureaucracy so that all these people are protected
by the system to do their jobs?
A. Dr Manmohan Singh
There are basically three things. First of all, the health
sector in our country needs a lot more of public
resources than we have been able or willing to devote. If
we take our health care very seriously, then this country
must recognize that we are not spending adequate
amount in meeting the basic health needs of our
population. The second thing is whether it is education,
or health, we must improve delivery systems. As Rajivji
used to say, we spend a lot of money but out of every one
rupee that we spend, 85 paise probably is wasted through
leakages. It is that conviction which ultimately gave rise
to the concern about maximum possible decentralization.
If we are implementing projects and programmes at the
grassroot level and the local communities are involved
in planning and management of these programmes, may
be they would be a more watchful and careful about
efficient use of resources. India is a large country, and
as I said earlier, in social phenomena, all short sentences
have their limitations. What works in one part of India
may not work in other parts of India. Therefore, we must
create space for large-scale experimentation and that is
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where I feel that decentralization, Panchayati Raj
Institutions have their relevance. The NGOs can also
fill this gap at least partially. For example, in the
Ahmednagar district, the Arole couple has been working
on a rural healthcare system which provides decent
healthcare at affordable costs within the reach of the rural
communities. We must learn from our failures and
successes. Maximum possible decentralization with a
strong commitment to public funding of all primary
health care programmes is absolutely essential to get
the desired results. In Madhya Pradesh, a Government
run civil hospital at Indore, was in bad shape. The local
collector had the vision and the wisdom to involve the
local community in its management. Small user charges
were levied and that hospital has now a very different
perspective and a very different look. So we need to
experiment with new innovative ideas and out of this
experimentation, will emerge some consensus to tackle
these difficult problems.
Q. Dr Kamal Tauri, Additional Secretary in Interstate
Council
Two points I have to ask you, one is there are some
pockets where all the programmes whether it is
population or poverty, are persistently failing. For huge
country like ours, there are many in the community and
in the bureaucracy to offer his/her services for difficult
programmes? Can policy be changed for inviting
volunteers to take up difficult assignments where
persistently the good name of the country is failing? Can
policies be redefined for this sort of assignments?
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Copyright <92003 by POPULATION FOUNDATION OF INDIA
Published by
S Ramaseshan
Secretary and Treasurer
Population Foundation.of India
B-28 Qutab Institutional Area
New Delhi-llOO16
?{c\\
C()~posed and Printed by
R~productions India
New Delhi
Editing
Geeta Malhotra, Programme Officer (lEC)