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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Lopsided growth by Venkitesh Ramakrishnan

Lopsided growth by Venkitesh Ramakrishnan

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published Published on Dec 8, 2011   modified Modified on Dec 8, 2011

U.P.'s GDP grew at 7.28 per cent in the past five years, but the State ranks low in virtually every area of socio-economic development.

IF statistics on gross domestic product (GDP) are the only criteria to evaluate the performance of a government, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in Uttar Pradesh will have to be rated as one with highly impressive credentials. For, India's most populous State has recorded a growth rate of 7.28 per cent between 2007 and 2011, the period of Mayawati's rule. The government's public relations officers point out that this growth rate has been achieved at a time when the Indian economy has been hard-pressed in the face of challenges posed by the global recession. It is further pointed out that Uttar Pradesh ranks high among the five States that have registered growth rates higher than the targets they had set to achieve in the Eleventh Plan period (2007-12). The State's target was 6.10 per cent, but in 2010-11 alone it was able to achieve a GDP growth of 8.08 per cent.

This is only one side of the story, the growth measured on the basis of statistics. As far as social and related economic indicators are concerned, Uttar Pradesh lags behind several States. Studies by government and non-governmental agencies have shown that in the case of virtually every indicator of social development such as infant mortality rate, literacy, birth rate, death rate, per capita income, health care, teacher-pupil ratio in primary schools and electrification of villages, Uttar Pradesh ranks 13th or 14th among the 16 major States. The State continues to account for nearly 25 per cent of the infant deaths in the country and has a total Human Development Index (HDI) in the range of 0.5. There has, however, been marginal improvement in indicators such as literacy and per capita income though these cannot be compared with the record of States such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The government's claim is that it has recorded major gains in five areas: collection of revenue, enhancement of infrastructure, industrial development, strengthening of the agricultural sector, and empowerment of the weaker sections of society. However, all the claims except the one on collection of revenue have been challenged even by those who are working in these sectors. When the BSP came to power in 2007, Mayawati's then deputy, Satish Chandra Mishra, stated that the party's pursuit of the Sarva Samaj welfare agenda would involve making the best use of the policy of economic liberalisation and the politics of empowerment by adopting a ‘middle path'. While there has been no specific reference to this comment by the BSP leadership in later years, several observers of the government on the two sides – the votaries of economic liberalisation and the advocates of empowerment of weaker sections – have pointed out that the Mayawati regime's track record is neither here nor there.

A recent study by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a Delhi-based think tank, made a qualitative assessment of the overall situation prevailing in the State as follows: “In recent years, the State is exhibiting some robust numbers around growth and other socio-economic indicators; however, the development is largely skewed, with significant parts of the population still a distant way from the benefits of the numeric achievements. There is inequity in distribution of most of the provisioning like infrastructure, social services, with strong cartels often sabotaging the development agenda. In addition, the quality of the provision and services are also questionable, with no real measure to assess the quality. Further, the increasing rich-poor divide, politico-bureaucratic nexus and inequitable distribution of wealth has made the State a cause of concern for a number of people. The situation is arising primarily because the focus of development has shifted from the people to more on upward management or pleasing the masters. There is a race to show numeric achievements without any concern of whether it is affecting the lives of the common person or not. Settling personal vendettas, whether in politics or administration, has become the order of the day.”

While this is the view of a think tank that seeks to work within the institutional framework and negotiate with the government and the bureaucracy on policies and their implementation, a large number of social organisations that have supported the people's struggles in different parts of the State echo these views, albeit with a different emphasis. Satyam Verma, trade union leader and social activist who has been involved in a number of agitations in eastern Uttar Pradesh, particularly against land acquisition in favour of corporate entities, told Frontline that the ideological orientation of the government was completely dictated by neoliberal economic policies and hence it was loaded heavily in favour of corporate bigwigs.

“The Mayawati government has spent crores of rupees on beautifying certain streets of Lucknow, the State capital, and on initiating express highways, but all this has not benefited the poor or weaker sections of society. On the contrary, it has resulted in the displacement of thousands of poor people from their habitats and the confiscation of thousands of hectares of land for corporate interests. In fact, the brutal suppression of the struggles of sand workers, landless and poor peasants in Allahabad-Kausambi [region] unmasked the real character of the government. The peasants and workers belonging to the Allahabad-Kausambi region are struggling against the illegal control over sand mining and riverbed land exercised by the landlords and the mafia. The sand trade, agricultural operations on river banks, fishing, river transport, and all other economic activities linked to rivers are under the control of the mafia and the landlords, who are aided and abetted by the BSP leadership, including Ministers,” he said.

Lenin Raghuvanshi, a Varanasi-based Dalit rights activist, said the government had failed to evolve a policy implementation package that would benefit large sections of the population, particularly the underprivileged. “The single most important thrust of the Mayawati government has been on symbolism. This is reflected in the building of huge commemorative structures in the name of bygone Dalit leaders such as B.R. Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram, and even living leaders like Mayawati. This brings no benefit to the lives of the downtrodden, and there is no concern for this. Even the half-hearted Dalit empowerment [initiative] that has taken place under the government is confined to Mayawati's own Chamar community, leaving communities such as Musahar, considered to be the ‘Dalitest' of Dalits, in the same socio-economic situation they were several decades ago.” Raghuvanshi said the cartels and vested interests referred to in studies such as the one done by the ORF were reported to be business partners of the BSP leadership.

The uniform opinion among all sections of observers is that the government has failed to deliver on two crucial counts: maintenance of law and order and checking corruption. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has ranked Uttar Pradesh highest in the incidence of crime. The State registered 33.9 per cent of the crimes reported in 2010, with high figures for murder and rape. Although the figures did not show an increase in the incidence of crime since 2009, the State continued to top the nation's crime chart.

In the area of political and administrative corruption, all sections of society complain that the current regime has scaled new heights. A few months ago, a senior bureaucrat told Frontline: “Corruption has, for long, been accepted as a norm in the socio-political life of Uttar Pradesh. Successive governments, led by parties of all hues, have promoted it almost openly. The current government and its leadership have persisted on the same path and have, in many ways, pushed the blatancy quotient of corruption to new levels.” Several developments, including a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in 2010, have upheld the veracity of this observation. The CAG found 17,500 cases of corruption and misuse of funds in 68 State government departments, including Public Works, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Sugarcane and Sugar Industries, Irrigation, Industrial Development, Social Welfare, Food and Civil Supplies, Tourism, Urban Development, and Cooperatives.

The correlation between corruption and the collapse of law and order was highlighted by a major corruption case in recent times. This was the Rs.8,600-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam. Incidents relating to the scam led to the killing of three senior government officers – Dr Vinod Kumar Arya, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for Family Welfare in Lucknow; Dr B.P. Singh, another CMO for Family Welfare; and Dr Yogendra Singh Sachan, a deputy CMO – within a span of three months. Sachan, who was arrested for his alleged involvement in the embezzlement of NRHM funds, was found dead in the Lucknow district jail.

When this case came to light, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh pointed out that there was large-scale misuse of funds in Uttar Pradesh in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, too. He demanded an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into this. Mayawati, on her part, dismissed the allegations as politically motivated and rejected the demand for a CBI probe.

The Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (S.P.), the principal opposition in the State, has raised doubts about the government's “success” in revenue collection. The S.P. leadership said successive governments in the 1990s and between 2000 and 2006 had, from time to time, addressed the issues of economic deterioration and fiscal deficit, and that a ‘White Paper on the Fiscal Situation' had been issued in 1998-99. “On the basis of this, several moves were made aimed at course correction. On the basis of these reforms, U.P. became the first recipient at the sub-national level of fiscal restructuring from the World Bank. Following this, the Mulayam Singh government passed the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act in 2004, which put forward the principles of fiscal management disallowing the State to spend beyond a certain limit. All this led to some improvement in fiscal indicators, especially in 2005-06 and 2006-07. As a consequence, there was greater allocation of funds for priority areas such as power, roads and health. And it was these initiatives that led to greater collection of revenue. The Mayawati government has followed in these steps, of course, in a skewed manner. They have brought in some gains basically on account of the strength of the initiatives. So the BSP government cannot take credit for it,” S.P. leader Akhilesh Yadav said. Clearly, the political jousting will continue with conflicting claims on growth and developments.

Commenting on the overall socio-political situation in the State, the political analyst and advocate Indra Bhushan Singh said that beyond statistics the factor of public impression was also important in the evaluation of Ministries, and on this score, the Mayawati government did not rate anywhere near the Nitish Kumar government in neighbouring Bihar. He said: “What people are looking for are not statistics on high growth rates or lofty announcements, but the political will to create an environment of trust, the sense to evolve simple and scalable models of development that will affect everyday life and, above all, a sense of safety, security and justice. On this ground, the problem with Uttar Pradesh is that no political leadership inspires confidence. That shared absence could well mean an electoral advantage for the BSP and its leader, who has strong control over a particular section of society.”

Frontline, Volume 28, Issue 25, 3-16 December, 2011, http://www.frontline.in/stories/20111216282501300.htm

Tagged with: inclusive growth



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