Growth without governance

By Vikas Chawla
30 Aug 2010

India can take pride in its high economic growth rate but shoddy implementation of government programmes force majority of citizens to live without basic amenities.

Good governance can be described as a term in which public institutions allocate resources judiciously, monitor implementation of projects and meet the socio-economic aspirations of people. It also involves establishing transparency in government systems to ensure equitable, effective and hassle-free delivery of public services to the citizens.

Post independence, government of India has initiated several programs to alleviate poverty and improve the socio economic conditions. Thousands of crores of rupees have been spent on subsiding food, promoting education, providing low cost housing, improving rural infrastructure, waiving of loans etc. But because of poor governance, inefficiency and corruption, government efforts are not resulting in tangible results on the ground.

The end result is that most Indians lack provision for health, education, food, housing, employment, transport, drinking water, infrastructure, security, pollution control & basic sanitation.
In spite of rapid economic growth, the social sector indices portray a very poor image of India. Some stats are worse than even the war torn sub-Saharan African countries.
More than a third of India's people live below the poverty line

India ranks 171 out of the 175 countries in the world in public health spending

An estimated 72% of Indians still lack access to improved sanitation facilities

Of the 2.5 billion people that defecate openly, some 665 million of these live in India

India currently has the largest illiterate population of any nation on earth

About 49 per cent of the world's underweight children are in India

Dismal scenario in public education
After so many years of independence, 35% of the population is illiterate and only 15% of the students reach high school. That is in spite of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, education cess, mid-day meal, national policy on education and the thousands of crores spent annually in education sector.

Due to poor governance and lack of political will the most critical sector i.e primary education, has been ignored. We have to suffer the ignominy of being the nation with most number of illiterates in the world.
There is a genuine lack of will power in today’s politicians to translate government goals, objectives and policy priorities into tangible economic benefits for poor people.

Politics and Governance
The most surprising factor in India is that people will not necessarily vote for those political leaders or parties which provide or promise good governance. People mostly vote on the basis of identity and it is very easy to sway them. Political parties also engage in vote bank politics and focus more on populist measures rather than focussing on improving the socio economic condition.

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