Next time you are worried about India's superpower status, remember this report from the Govt. of India website: (Let it be known that governments seldom accept their failures).
(Report submitted to Prime Minister on 5th November' 2007)
says:
Such a buoyancy in the economy did lead to a sense of euphoria by the turn of the last century. However, a majority of the people, who did not have even Rs. 20 a day for consumption,were not touched by this euphoria. At the end of 2004-05, about 836 million or 77 per cent of the population were living below Rs.20 per day and constituted most of India's informal economy. About 79 per cent of the informal or unorganised workers belonged to this group without any legal protection of their jobs or working conditions or social security, living in abject poverty and excluded from all the glory of a shining India
...
what is quite significant is that 79 per cent of the informal or unorganised workers, 88 per cent of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 80 per cent of the OBC population and 84 per cent of the Muslims belong to the poor and vulnerable group. They have remained poor at a bare subsistence level without any job or social security, working in the most miserable, unhygienic and unliveable conditions, throughout this period of high economic growth since the early nineties. There have been some inter se changes within this total group, such that the proportion of the Extremely Poor and the Poor has come down, while the number of marginally poor and the Vulnerable gr
groups have increased. But the percentage of population suffering from poverty and vulnerability has remained substantial.
...
Since data from the 61st Round of the NSS are now available we are in a position to compare our estimates of the 55th Round (1999-00) with those for 2004-05
....... What this means in simple terms is that the entire increase in the employment in the organised sector over this period has been informal in nature i.e. without any job or social security. This constitutes what can be termed as informalisation of the formal sector, where any employment increase consists of regular workers without social security benefits and casual or contract workers again without the benefits that should accrue to formal workers.
....
While the percentage of population below the poverty line has come down, albeit at a slower rate during the nineties and until recently compared to in the eighties, the movement is within the group of broadly poor (41 per cent) or the poor and vulnerable (77 per cent) of the population.
....
It is quite evident that the Indian growth story has been characterized by a rapid growth of middle class and the rich, expanding their consumption of non-food, non-essential and durable items and thereby providing a huge market of 253 million people that includes imports of these items from the global market. There is no doubt that this "Shining India" has expanded in the past and is still expanding at a very high rate. But this picture is spoiled by a virtually stagnant consumption expenditure and miserable working and living conditions of the 77 per cent of our population who are poor and vulnerable.
This group includes the overwhelming population of the dalits and adivasis, OBCs and Muslims. This is the other world which can be characterised as the India of the Common People, constituting more than three-fourths of the population and consisting of all those whom the growth process has, by and large, bypassed.”
....
So much for the piss on (err trickle down) economy!!!
Enuf said!
PS: Thanks Sainath for pointing out the document!
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