Necessary steps to ending poverty (Health, education, public services)

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 Necessary steps to ending poverty (Health, education, public services)

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• Fifty years of poverty eradication : Indira Gandhi first spoke of poverty eradication, as part of elections, five decades ago. The slogan was "Garibi Hatao", and the nation started to move slowly in the right direction for that from 1960s.
• Accelerating the reduction of poverty : The 1980s saw India gaining pace in poverty reduction. She displayed two attributes - 

1. A pragmatism regarding income level increase being central to poverty eradication, and 
2. taking pride in being Indian (hence poverty reduction to better the citizens' lives). 

• What was special about these phases : In the late 1960s, agri production picked up pace due to Green Revolution. In early 1980s, economic growth had surged. But poverty did not end.
• The problem exists : The reason poverty did not end was that governments started schemes that became mere palliatives, as the term "poverty alleviation" shows. The root cause of poverty wasn't touched – capability deprivation that makes a person incapable of earning enough.
• What is income poverty : It arises from deprivation of capability. If we focus only on income shortfall, this symptom will be addressed (only) but not the cause (capability deprivation).
• Year 2019 : Both the BJP and INC have announced income support schemes, and the BJP's PM KISAN is already rolled out. But income support for any one section of Indian population is unfair - after all, agri labourers and urban pavement dwellers can be both equally fair candidates for such schemes. 
• What about agri subsidies : If we think of those being unfair, then they are only for production, and food being critical to society at large we cannot complain of partisanship!
• Ethical welfare programmes : It must not exclude anyone at the same level. In 2019, the PM KISAN came when fiscal targets were breached.
• NYAY overshoots KISAN : The Congress wants to transfer 12 times the amount that KISAN is doing, to the poorest 20% households via its Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY). It is not a discriminatory scheme, but real time beneficiary identification will be a tough task.
• Fiscal space : NYAY will need approx. Rs.3.6 lakh crores per annum, which is 13% of central budgetary outlay for 2019-20. It can be done if all Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS are ended) and subsidies reduced a little. The real problem is something else - NYAY will be more than 2X the combined expenditure on education and health + capital expenditure. So the opportunity cost will be high for India as deficit of social & physical infra is very acute.
• Social and physical infra : These elements hit capability deprivation the most, positively. Their absence may keep the poor into poverty for ever. And in India, they are needed on such a large scale that only public provisioning can make it happen.
• UBI or UBS : If we talk of the Universal Basic Income (publicly-funded), we can also talk of the Universal Basic Services from public sources (not entirely from Budget). We cannot copy the rich nations of Europe, which can give UBI as UBS already exist. In India, serious UBS building has not even started.
• Indian states : The western and southern states are much better in per capita income levels than the northern, central and eastern states. Why? Higher human development levels - health, education, income levels. All states have the same Union govt., so it is local level execution that matters. Won't NYAY suffer the same fate?
• Needed services : We need more of services - producer and consumer variety - to really eliminate capability deprivation. Many of such services cannot always be bought in the market. So income support alone won't work.
• List of services : We need high quality services like - supply of water, sanitation, housing, health, education etc. There really are no shortcuts to ending poverty, but it can be done, and income support alone won't work.
• Summary : Without attacking the root causes of poverty, the factors that cause capability deprivation, any kind of poverty eradication programme will be only half-useful.

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