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Just walk 10-15 kms away from any city boundary and you can see life as it was several years back. Some households may have a TV set, mobile phone but nothing much has changed. You can see unshaven listless faces of landless labourer, daily wagers in plenty. Dirty tattered clothes are their conspicuous identity. Villages still have poor infrastructure. Roads are dusty. Govt dispensaries are there for the name sake without stock of even common medicines. Children are undernourished, their school buildings wherever they are present picture of dilapidated structure. Sanitary conditions are no good; people still go to fields to ease themselves. The resurgent economy has not touched their life. Unabated suicides by debt ridden farmers are a blot on India’s success story. How ironical, the man who showcased Karnataka State’s economic growth story in an advertisement committed suicide due to debt burden.
Although Govt has introduced poverty alleviation programmes including ‘Rojgar guarantee’ scheme NEGRA but its implementation is far from satisfactory. Corruption has taken the cake here too. In a glaring example, for 11 days, 99 people worked as labourer under NEGRA scheme in Tonk district of Rajasthan. But for daily wages, they were paid Rs11- Rs 1 for each day of labour. What a cruel joke!
Though India boasts of high economic growth (in terms of GDP), it is shameful that there is large population who do not have access to two square meals a day. Out of 1.15 billion populations, 350to400 million people are living below the poverty line. Nearly 75 percent of the poor people are from rural areas. India’s economic boom has benefited only a few, inequitable distribution of resources among people is a major problem faced by the nation.
India is producing billionaires at a faster rate every year. American President Obama, during his recent visit, pronounced India as a developed country, but the fact remains 41 percent of India’s population falls below poverty line of US $ 1.25 a day (Rs 21.6 in urban areas and Rs 14. 3 in rural areas) in terms of international standard.
India’s burgeoning population multiplies the problem. We may take pride in growing youth population of the country but it is also adding to the army of jobless. India’s Family Planning campaign has lost steam long ago, no effort have been made from the Govt side to arrest population explosion. Again, it is an example of implementation failure.
Poor spend about 80 percent of their income on food. With prices of milk, sugar, pulses, vegetables gone up, even ‘dal –roti’ has disappeared from his ‘thali’.
Life of urban poor is no better. Price escalation of daily use things has made his life miserable. There is no social security life line available to him; his meagre resources cannot withstand pressure of inflationary economic.
