Reaching out to victims of ‘marketisation’ : The Tribune India

Join Whatsapp Channel

Reaching out to victims of ‘marketisation’

This generation has to reinvent the desirable future once again. The argument now is for a newer scheme of entitlements as compared to that which emerges from the poverty line that was recommended in another era, now long gone

Reaching out to victims of  ‘marketisation’

There has been a decline in the workforce engaged in crop production. New norms of assessing the level of poverty will have to be defined and the data made available by the SECC will help target the vulnerable sections of society.



Yoginder.K.Alagh

The Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), data on employment leads to a set of questions on the data sets and on the underlying trends in the rural economy.  According to the Population Census, the growth process in agriculture in India also led to a change in the structure of employment.  Comparison of the 1999-2000 estimates with those of 1961 brought out this shift. (See box)
 
 
Three features are significant. The first is the decline in the workforce engaged in crop production is higher than in the agricultural sector as a whole. The second is that the increase in employment based on livestock is high. The third is that forestry is not absorbing a larger share of the workforce, because policies were not conducive for giving rise to a dynamic local production sector. 
 
In some fast-growing areas these trends are more pronounced, since either the share of non-farm employment is much lower than the national average and has fallen or the decline is faster than in the country.  
 
These processes continued in the 2011 Census. The SECC raises questions on all this. To begin with, the percentage of female-headed households at 13 per cent is now much higher than the earlier estimates. This needs more probing.
 
The basic problem identified in the SK Dey Memorial Lecture in 2005 was that governments don't follow the Census definitions of urban settlements and in our book on the Future of Indian Agriculture in 2012 we showed that  in 2011, 4 crore rural persons who actually lived in Census Towns which are called rural  bedevils SECC estimates also. Having said this, it would be incorrect to ignore SECC data and its relation with poverty and deprivation.
 
To understand the complexity, some background is necessary. The Tendulkar Group had moved over from a calorie-determined poverty line to a food expenditure-determined line. Its constituents were happy with the existing urban poverty ratio or head-count ratio of 25.7 per cent derived from the 1977 Task Force as adapted for price adjustment from time to time. They suggested that this should be the national poverty line and that the expenditure required to meet this goal should be the poverty line for both rural and, of course, the urban areas.
 
This was fascinating, both for policy and in theory. We were all critical of the official poverty line or the Alagh Poverty Line as it was sometimes described (although one had been asking for change), but they “found it desirable in the interest of continuity to situate it in some generally acceptable aspect of the present exercise”. (GOI, 2009, p. 5). Like Banquo's ghost, the 1977 Alagh Task Force cast its shadow, possibly since Tendulkar was a member. The poverty ratio for urban areas derived from that method drove the new system. That ratio was derived from calorie norms. Now the argument was turned on its head and the same ratio, in turn, determined the required food expenditure-determined poverty line basket. That basket was also suggested for rural areas. 
 
Viewed in a causal sense, the urban poverty ratio in 1979 came from calorie requirements and the poverty line basket. Now the ratio determined the basket for both the rural and urban areas. This wouldn't pass and our view in a published paper then in a volume released by Amartya Sen was that the indicators have to emerge from a goals exercise, which needs national-level cogitation, fighting, and validation. 
 
In 1976, the concerns of emerging India in the 21st century could not be visualised, and it is futile to paste them on a tattered 1979 Poverty Line. The country's experience since 1991 has been that reform by stealth fails in substantial measure. Thus, today we need to articulate the space of different sections of our people in a definable and contestable manner in the design of reform.  This generation, therefore, has to re-invent the desirable future once again.
 
In this perspective, the argument that I would like to offer is that the very poor should be selectively defined and targeted, but that the growth process should be built around entitlements. The design of policy should provide incentives for widespread growth, and these would include State-determined incentives. There should also be disincentives for those who erode widespread growth processes by undermining institutions or synergies on a mass scale. But due humility necessitates that this viewpoint should be seen in the context of the socio-economic churning taking place all around us.
 
 It would be desirable to return to a world wherein the intense redistribution focus is on the poor and the process of growth is designed for the needy who are not that poor. The argument now is for a newer scheme of entitlements as compared to that which emerges from the poverty line that was recommended in another era, now long gone.
The Deputy Chairman, Niti Aayog, has correctly stated that a Poverty Norm will be needed so that SECC data can be used for specific programmes. When the Rangarajan Group was set up, the need of a Poverty Estimate as also SECC kind of indicators was clarified thus: “The methodology for arriving at poverty estimates has been in place for the last several years and various committees in the past have arrived at estimates based upon certain indices of poverty from time to time.” These Committees include the Alagh Committee (1977), the Lakdawala Committee (1989), followed by the Tendulkar Committee (2005) which submitted its recommendations in 2009. The Government had accordingly decided to undertake the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), 2011 based on the recommendations of the Saxena and Hashim Committees mandated to capture various kinds of deprivations. 
A technical group to revise/revisit the methodology for estimating poverty in a manner which is consistent with the current realities was set up. This will have the benefit of SECC, 2011 data, based upon a comprehensive census, which will enable the government to purposively revisit poverty estimates and identify the poor. The Group set up under Rangarajan did not do this and had used some of the norms of the 1977 task force on landless labourers, their share and calorie needs.
 
The Niti Aayog Poverty Group has to set the goals again as the I977 task force did. These goals then need relationships with instruments and programmes. Finally, there has to be a matching with scarcities not only of the available resources, but also of the more basic non-renewable kind as well as delivery capabilities otherwise these kind of exercises will remain sporadic acts of activism. The task that the Expert Group was asked to carry out needs to be undertaken today, two decades after the Group was set up. While current development thinking does not emphasise it, this exercise will have to unequivocally define the rights of sections of the population. There will have to be a much greater emphasis on the rights of individuals and groups, including participatory forms of decision-making. 
 
These are not just questions of resource use, but also of governance, and would, in fact, be resource-conserving if they are properly designed and implemented. The systems will demand greater fairness and self-restraint in the use of government power. The demands on transparency and the right to information will be related to this. There will have to be a response to the demand for protecting vulnerable groups, either the historically underprivileged, or the victims of marketisation, concerns for human rights and particularly of specific groups such as women, children, the minorities, the adivasis, and the mentally and physically challenged, one hopes to be now defined by the Niti Aayog Poverty Group. While new poverty norms have to be developed, SECC data will be a great aid.

The writer, an eminent economist, is Chancellor, Central University of Gujarat, Vice-Chairman, Sardar Patel Institute of Economics & Social Research. 

Top News

Arvind Kejriwal to be produced before Delhi court today as 6-day ED custody ends

Excise policy case: Delhi court extends ED custody of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal till April 1

In his submissions, Kejriwal said, ‘I am named by 4 witnesse...

Delhi High Court dismisses PIL to remove Arvind Kejriwal from CM post after arrest

Delhi High Court dismisses PIL to remove Arvind Kejriwal from CM post after arrest

The bench refuses to comment on merits of the issue, saying ...

‘Unwarranted, unacceptable’: India on US remarks on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest

‘Unwarranted, unacceptable’: India on US remarks on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest

MEA spokesperson says India is proud of its independent and ...

Bullying Congress culture, no wonder being rejected: PM Modi, backs senior lawyers who flagged attempts to undermine public trust in judiciary

Bullying Congress culture, no wonder being rejected: PM Modi

Backs senior lawyers who flagged attempts to undermine publi...

Gujarat court sentences former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to 20 years in jail in 1996 drug case

Gujarat court sentences former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to 20 years in jail in 1996 drug case

Bhatt, who was sacked from the force in 2015, is already beh...


Cities

View All