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| India's growing urban poverty crisis | | | Dr. Manzoor Ahmad Yetoo | 10/15/2014 10:47:03 PM |
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India has been long
championing an "in
clusive" growth model. But its failure to ensure that the benefits of growth have "trickled down" to the poor, is well established.
When adjusted for variations in the cost of living, 32.7percent of Indias population are living below poverty line.
India is home to a third of the worlds poor, and on a host of other social and development indicators it continues to slip further and further behind other developing countries. Poverty lines are not entirely reliable measures of deprivation, instead they allow for long-term trends to be traced. According to figures compiled by the World Bank and McKinsey, since the 1980s India has only lifted 35 million people out of extreme poverty. In China the figure is 678 million. India's poor poverty-reduction rate is matched by rapid increases in income inequality.
In theory widening gaps between the rich and the poor should encourage the latter to innovate and compete and because of this, economists have tended to neglect it as a developmental concern. But this is now changing. The widening gap in income levels in urban areas is the product of a number of factors: continued rural-to-urban migration, a contracting industrial sector, natural calamities and a growing under-skilled labor force. India is urbanizing rapidly, with the urban population set to increase from 27.8 percent in 2011 to 38 percent by 2025. The country's shrinking manufacturing sector has not been able to absorb this migrant labor force, exacerbating the problems of urban unemployment, slum expansion and widening income inequality.
These challenges have had a long gestation, and persistent policy neglect is to blame. The political class, across the ideological divide, continues to be evasive in addressing the legitimate needs of a fast growing urban India.
Manufacturing has the potential to be an engine of growth and development. But the country's manufacturing sector continues to be hobbled by poor electrification, a shortage of skilled workers and inflexible hiring-and-firing practices.
Improving public services, reforming labor regulations and boosting infrastructure are three things the World Bank has consistently called for, each of which is central to India's effort to tackle poverty, boost employment and revive industry.
Until then India is witnessing the curious phenomenon of " reverse migration": due to the lack of manufacturing jobs, 12 million people are set to return to rural areas from cities by 2019. These estimates, produced by Crisil, an Indian research institute, also show that the rate of job creation across both industry and agriculture is declining.
India is famously enjoying a demographic divided: it has a growing population with millions more entering the labor force each year than are leaving it. With a median age of 26 and with almost two thirds of the population under 35, India is well placed to compete with the aging populations of its Asian economic rivals China and Japan. But India's vast stock of labour is being squandered by a shortage of jobs, a stumbling manufacturing sector and desperate skill deficits - challenges with serious implications for urban India.
The author is an expert in environment ,project & waste Management, occupational safety& health & pollution control and empanelled expert for IRCA).
(You may reach
him at [email protected]) |
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