While taking pride in the fact that poverty ratio in the country declined to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12 from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05, the Government at the same time has acknowledged that timely action is required to provide basic facilities to people like health and education apart from making them adequately skilled.
The Economic Survey 2013-14 presented by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament on Wednesday, quoting the findings of Tendulkar Committee on poverty estimates, said that the poverty ratio declined from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12. “In absolute terms, the number of poor declined from 407.1 million (40.71 crores) in 2004-05 to 269.3 million (26.93 crores) in 2011-12 with an average annual decline of 2.2 percentage points during 2004-05 to 2011-12,” it said.
Simultaneously though, the survey added that the existing gap in health and education indicators in India as compared to developed countries and also many of the developing countries, highlights the need for much faster and wider spread of basic health and education.Therefore it suggested that policy makers need to design and execute development strategies targeting the young population that was approximately 58 per cent in 2001 and will increase to more than 64 per cent in 2021.
Citing figures, the survey said that “as a percentage of GDP, expenditure on education has gone up from 2.9 per cent in 2008-09 to 3.3 per cent in 2013-14 (Budgetary Estimates). There is need not only to increase it further, but also address quality issues”.Similarly the policy document added that expenditure on health is just 1.4 per cent of GDP. Though in 2013-14, there was an increase in outlay by 7.44 per cent over the previous year still a lot more needs to be done to provide quality and affordable healthcare for the large Indian population.
The existing gap in health and education indicators in India as compared to developed countries and also many of the developing countries highlights the need for much faster and wider spread of basic health and education, the survey noted.