The unambiguous deduction from the India Human Development Report is that growth pays. The other deduction from the report is that those in the UPA government who trumped the concept that road expansion was an elitist idea should be hauled up now for a lost decade.
The second report, badly written in places, nowhere diverges from the narrative that growth helps cut down on deprivation, even if the government botches up on its job of providing supporting infrastructure. The report examines three strands of development?income, education and health?across all states, castes and religious groups. The conclusion from the report is that, of these three strands, it is in the availability of education where India has soared.
Yet, as the statistical appendices to the report show, most states and the Centre have messed up in providing adequate standards of education or health facilities, except for the usual stand-out case of Kerala, Goa and Delhi. But, while health outcomes have suffered in the process, people have stretched every possible means across the country to provide education to their children and, sometimes, themselves.
The report does not analyse this strand, but it is obvious why the differences have emerged. The growth story has made people, cutting across even religious groups, believe that better education will pay. They have been willing to take a chance on health outcomes in the process and that, too, shows. So, between 1995-96 and 2007-08, the percentage of those using private primary and upper primary schools have risen by 8%. A fifth of the school-going children are enrolled in these institutions, from a tenth a decade ago.
The most startling statistic on education is the net attendance ratio for scheduled castes and schedules tribes in schools. In the urban areas, this is 62% and 73% (no typo), compared with 72% for other areas.
At the same time, the percentage of schools that have graduated from a one-room affair to a class for each group has remained abysmal. In 2007-08, the average number of rooms for government-schools across states was 3.6, that too because of the higher average for Delhi and Chandigarh. And the percentage of GDP that goes into health and education (Centre and states) is almost equal, at 3.4% and 4.1%. The difference in the outcome is what the population feels it needs to spend on education to get onto the growth track. It doesn?t mean health outcomes are any less important, but the people have made a choice among the limited options that are available to them.
Thus, those who believe that cutting down on growth impulses by the state to benefit the cause of inclusive growth are advocating a disastrous line of action. The Indian population earnestly believes there is merit in more growth. Thus, while doctor-to-patient ratios in India are worse than sub-Saharan Africa, the same is the case with teacher-to-student ratios. But the results, as we see, are different.
This is also evident in the inter-state differences. States that exceed the mean all-India per capita income typically do well on most provisions. But, while there is sometimes an exception, like Madhya Pradesh, which despite a lower per capita income, has made strides comparable to the better states, it is never better than the best of them. On the flip side, none of the better-off states do worse than the national standards on every major indicator (even Gujarat).
Among the lower-ranked states, the improvement in education and health outcomes, too, have begun only after growth of state domestic product has taken off.
The report makes it obvious through all its tables that on each indicator for each economic group, while there are clear differences in outcomes, none is worse off through growth. In fact, one should make that a positive statement?every group has benefited from growth.
Therefore, other than settling the broader growth versus inclusion story, hopefully for a long time, the merit of the HDI report is in pointing out the sali-ence of key economic development themes.
Of these, the most important one is the role of hard infrastructure and, within that, of roads. ?For many Indian villages, it is the lack of connectivity that cripples their development?farmers cannot get their produce to markets on time, children cannot go to school, and health and other vital public services remain unreachable,? it notes.
The report also quotes a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute, which says an investment of R10 million in roads lifts 1,650 poor persons above the poverty line. That?s an expenditure of R6,060 per person, not too far off from the per capita expenditure of the state to provide food security.
Having said that, the HDI report should be made an annual one if it is to become a usable policy guide for the government. The distance of a decade makes the comparisons too far out to be meaningful and that severely restricts its utility.
In addition, the report tries to keep the inter-state comparisons in line with the political division, a job rather fraught. While Gujarat is a poster boy for growth, it falls short on human development indicators, and the final assessment for the state is totally mismatched. You can see the same problem in assessing Karnataka (again an Opposition-run state), which scores well on every indicator. For instance, its Muslim population has better performances than Hindus, the report notes. But the final assessment says: ?All aspects of human development (of Karnataka) need to be improved over time,? whatever that means. The strangest comment is for Madhya Pradesh. After noting that across all HDI, Muslims in the state fare better than Hindus including health, it says, ?Overall, Muslims are worse off for health-related indicators, whereas they are better off for other development indicators.? The India HDI report surely deserves to be developed better.
subhomoy.bhattacharjee@expressindia.com