A lot is being talked about India’s aspiration to become a global superpower, building a $5-trillion economy and achieving the sustainable development goals within the next one decade. But what is not fitting here is India’s progress in the social sector, which has been much sluggish in comparison to its GDP growth. India ranks 131 out of 189 countries in the Human Development Index; and as a matter of fact, the health and education sectors have badly hit its ranking in the index.
Development in the social sector is the precursor to build a $5-trillion economy faster. We cannot turn a blind eye to the inequalities that were pre-existing in India and cannot even deny the fact that the ‘inevitable lockdown’ owing to Covid-19 has further widened the gap.
So, what is important now is to emphasise on the social sector spending and augmenting the efficacy across the delivery systems. The premises of the argument nowhere suggests that there has been no development in the areas of electricity, road or water supply, but irrespective of these also, the spending in the social sector needs to be increased.
On an analysis of the social sector expenditure from FY-2014-15 to 2019-20, it is revealed that the education sector has received an almost consistent share of expenditure of around 2.8-3 percentage of GDP whereas several committees have recommended public expenditure in the education sector to be 6 per cent of the GDP; and for the health sector, expenditure has got little enhancement and reached a 1.5-percentage mark from the previous 1.2 percentage of the GDP. However, the 15th Finance Commission has suggested that the health expenditure should be increased to 2.1 per cent of the GDP. The expenditures, therefore, seem to be inadequate and abysmally low if we seek to resolve the problems in these sectors. Given the challenges and bottlenecks faced by health workers and the experience that we have gained especially during Covid-19, we cannot deny that while handling the exigencies arising out of the pandemic, we have neglected the non-Covid patients approaching the medical system.
And financially-impoverished patients also got discouraged from approaching the health system as medical services became expensive and, therefore, in accessible during the pandemic. Hence, a need is felt for universal health coverage, which must include the common man and the remotest point of the health system. Another area of the social development is the education sector, which is fundamental to aid human development. Undoubtedly, the outbreak of Covid-19 has further increased the pre-existing inequalities in the education system.
Such inequality also includes the unequal access to internet. As classroom teachings were imparted through internet mediums, the students from the underprivileged sections of the society were excluded from the classroom teachings.
Equality of opportunity and equal access to quality education is crucial towards preparing human resources, who will give befitting competition to the world labour market and increase the prospects of our nation in various sectors of the economy. Apart from this, we cannot ignore the National Family and Health Survey-5 report, which shows mixed trends as malnutrition level has worsened in some states, even though it has reduced to some extent in some other states.
It is difficult to imagine a nation with 35 per cent of children suffering from malnutrition, as we cannot afford to ignore hunger and malnutrition, since, it shall be repugnant to the interest of the nation and shall be anti-development, a hungry and sick nation cannot deliver on its aspirations.
It is therefore important to strengthen the foundation of nutrition programme which rests on agriculture, women’s empowerment, child and maternal health initiatives, nutrition education, sanitation and drinking water. All the existing Government programmes should cover all these aspects if an honest and sincere effort is to be taken to reduce under-nutrition and malnutrition.
The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us the significance of having employment guarantee scheme for the urban poor and migrants, as they were the worst affected during the pandemic and government could not provide any significant relief to them.
And for rural areas, there has to be increased allocations to the MGNREGA to address the issue of reverse migration. The government programmes relating to cooking gas like Ujjwala Yojana, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, providing loans to the self-employed and facilitation of direct benefit transfers in welfare schemes need to be continued. Under such circumstances it is important that the Union Budget for 2021-22 should increase allocations to the social sector mainly in health, education and in social security measures. It is otherwise difficult to achieve a good rank in the human development index and to become a global superpower with a $5-trillion economy.
(The writer is a lawyer and public policy expert and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law & Media Studies at School of Mass Communication, KIIT University. He can be reached at sjyotiranjan3@gmail.com.)