1. GDP Growth: 6.88 percent (2012). 2. People below Poverty Line: about 600 million. 3. Malnourished Children below age 6: about 63 million. 4. Children dying of malnutrition every hour: 300 (2.6 million a year)! 5. Malnourished people: about 217 million. 6. Households without toilets: 49.8 percent. 7. Indians practicing open defecation: 626 million. 8. Schools without separate toilets for girls: about 56 percent. 9. Illiterate adults in India: 287 million (UN 2012)(Ref.: State of the Nation 2012, NGO Open Space, Bangalore, and CNN-IBN TV Discussion 2013 AUG).

It is sad and very bad that 66 years of India’s independence and democracy could not resolve these problems. The politics, politicians and policies during the years after Indian independence were not systematic, efficient and rational enough. Consequently, the country took a very slow and wavering path in development. The world is changing at a very fast pace in social, cultural, scientific, technological levels etc and improving very fast. Lack of appropriate and inclusive development in India will cause serious damage to the lives of the largest group of poor people in the world which India has now. As persons in this group will not be able to live a worthy life for themselves and contribute anything in nation building, it will be a great loss for them, India and the whole world. It will put India way behind in its efforts towards all-roundsocio-economic development. Poverty is the largest single cause for the acute, chronic and widespread human misery in India. India’s poverty in 21st century is a black mark on Indian democracy and a new Dark Age in world history! Details of India’s poverty can go on - but we need a solution! 

Is it possible to reduce India’s poverty?

Many willargue that the reduction of the poverty of the world’s most diverse and complexcountry is not easy - this is only partially true. There are several examplesof spectacular development in the quite unfavourable circumstances in India. Highly talented and efficientexperts should study them thoroughly and select efficient projects and processfor careful adaptation without losing essential details. But these models andprocesses are few, known to few, not understood and ignored by many. If onevillage, town or city can develop in five to ten years, hundreds, thousands ormore communities can develop parallel, within the same time frame. A muchpoorer, more population-dense Bangladesh with fewer resources made spectacularimprovements in infant and maternal mortality, textile exports etc. India has sufficient natural and humanresources. Very fast and efficient information and communication technologies(ICT) can be used to find solutions, processes etc, educate on their theory,practice and implementation. India has more experts than mostcountries in many fields. Thus, now it is a very favourable time for India’s fast development. 

1. Appropriately decentralised governancethru Local Self-government Institutions in accordance with Panchayati Raj should be applied; procedures of ‘Porto Alegre Innovation’ and ideas from practice proved models inKerala & India should be adapted. These will reduce India’s poverty to below 15 percent in 10 to 20 years.

2. Long term, flexible planning withvision & innovation is the means for hi-tech development. Success modelsfrom the whole world for innovative & quality products & projects shouldbe emulated. Features of Singapore, Porto Alegre etc should be adapted.  

What about the Kerala Model of Development?

SinceKerala attained about 92 percent literacy, low child mortality rate of about 12per thousand, life expectancy of about 72 years etc by mid 1990s, there wassome hype about the high socio-economic development of Kerala. There wereclaims of a Kerala model of development for the third world to emulate. Thishype was further enhanced when the Left Democratic Front (LDF) governmentinitiated ‘People’s Planning’ in 1996 and devolved about 33 percent of planfunds to Kerala’s Local Self-government Institutions (LSGI). But, eventuallymany realised that there is no systematic and planned Kerala development model andthat the Peoples’ Planning was not effective as expected. Peoples’ Planning isnot a well deliberated idea; as planning is a field quite difficult even forexperts, common people will not be able to plan well and execute it. But, if peoples’involvement in Participatory processes like Participatory Budgeting (PB),Social Audits, Grama Sabhas etc aremanaged systematically and well, they can bring in quite positive results.  The secretof Kerala’s apparent development is the result of several incidental happeningsin Kerala. The most important of them was the arrival of Christianity and itsinvolvement and influence in the educational field. This resulted in higherliteracy, higher educational levels, professional qualifications etc and led tomassive migration of Kerala people all over India and the world; this made radicaland far-reaching changes in Kerala’s socio-economy. Currently, there are about 30 million Keralites in foreign countries. Most Kerala migrants are in the Gulfcountries and the highest remittances are from them. This high migration rateand inflow of funds have serious impacts in Kerala. It made a constructionboom, higher inflation and higher cost of living. Shortages of manual labourersin Kerala’s traditional agricultural, artisan and allied fields have reducedthe production of paddy, vegetables, milk and many other products. The massive inflowof funds has several negative effects too; Kerala now tops India in alcohol consumption, crime rate,increase in fallow land etc. Land reforms, reforms in school education,healthcare etc implemented by various governments have positive effects inreducing poverty in Kerala.Since theformation of Kerala state in 1956, Kerala was ruled almost alternately by LeftDemocratic Front (LDF) and United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition governments.Some of these governments collapsed mid-way and could not complete the term offive years. As these two groups have differences in ideology and opinions,their governance took zigzag courses, thereby undoing even good programmesdevised by the preceding government and the positive effects thereof. Amartya Sen, writing on the Kerala experience, points out that Kerala -despite its low income levels - has achieved more than even some of thehigh-growth economies like South Korea and China. But economistsare concerned about the dismal state of affairs in stimulating economic growth.Even compared with other Indian states, Kerala's performance in this sphere hasbeen poor, says Amartya Sen.  India’s First Social Reality Show! In 2010, Kerala state’s department of Local Self-government, Shuchitwa Mission (Sanitation Dept.), Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT), Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) and Doordarshan Malayalam TV channel, jointly devised India’s first Social Reality Show Competition for socio-economic development projects of Kerala’s Local Self-government Institutions (LSGI) – i.e., Panchayats, Municipalities and Corporations. It was called ‘Green Kerala Express’ (GKE). A website with the same name was created, a team of jury of socio-economic development experts etc were formed as well. The government department invited all of the about 1200 LSGIs in Kerala, to submit a ten minutes video CD on their favourite development project and gave instructions, guidelines, sample videos etc to help them understand the GKE competition and facilitate participation. However, only about 150 LSGIs participated.   The live TV discussions of GKE A team of experts of the Green Kerala Express Social Reality Show evaluated the video CDs submitted and selected most submissions. The respective Panchayats or LSGIs were invited and the Panchayat presidents or CEO of the LSGIs and a team from the LSGI came to the studio. The broadcasts were Monday thru Friday at 17:00 hrs and 23:00 hrs. Only about 150 of about 1200 Kerala LSGIs participated. A series of half an hour live TV discussion and evaluation episodes on Doordarshan Malayalam Channel was broadcasted from 1 March to 31 July 2010. After the first live TV evaluation of the projects, 15 were selected on the basis of jury’s marks. Site visits of these 15 LSGIs were done by a team of the jury and all the 15 were invited for a second round of live evaluation on TV.   The top 15 development projects of GKE After the second round of live discussions and evaluations on TV, first, second and third prizes of Rs. 100 lakhs, 50 lakhs and 25 lakhs were awarded to Elappully Panchayat’s Milk project, Akathethara Panchayat’s Reforestation project and Adat Panchayat’s Bio-Village project, respectively. All the remaining 12 LSGIs were awarded Rs. 10 lakhs each. In evaluating the LSGI’s, the jury considered not only the favourite projects that were highlighted, but also the all-round socio-economic development of the LSGI involved.   The 12 Panchayats which got the consolation prizes are: Kannadi (Palakkad); Palamel, Cheriyanad, Kanjikkuzhi, (Alappuzha); Koratty, (Thrissur); Meenangadi & Mananthavadi  (Wayanad); Nilambur (Malappuram); Kodiyathoor (Kozhikode); Aryanad & Kunnathukal (Thiruvananthapuram); and Sooranadu North (Kollam). Projects of Municipalities and City Corporations were not that impressive.   Even though GKE Social Reality Show revealed spectacular projects, it is considered a failure as the participation was poor, the video-clips on Youtube did not get much views etc; THIS CONCLUSION IS A BIG MISTAKE!

Some of the projects with spectacular results! I WANTED TO ADD MORE - a message says my Brouser does not support copying from my word doc. So I am compelled to stop HERE! I shall try to add and complete if possible. Anyone interested in my complete article, please email me: a.karammel@yahoo.com.