- Home
- News
- Buzz
- Participate
- Events
- Resources
- Jobs
- Spark
- Series
India’s poor yet to benefit from anti poverty reform programs: World Bank Report
Submitted by admin on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 10:47
in
Microfinance Focus May 26, 2011: A recent report by the World Bank titled ‘Social Protection for a Changing India’ says that even as India is currently in the process of implementation of various anti-poverty and social protection policies, however, the overall returns to spending in terms of poverty reduction has not reached its potential.
Prepared at the request of the Government of India, the report is a first comprehensive review by the World Bank of the performance of India’s key anti poverty and social protection programs such as the Public Distribution System (PDS), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (MGNREG), Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY), and Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) among others.
The new World Bank report further states that several reforms have been introduced in recent years and many states are demonstrating innovations in moving towards effective delivery of programs,
While India devotes over 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to her social protection programs and the spending allocated to each rural household on major centrally sponsored schemes is significant at 40 percent of the annual rural poverty line in 2004-2005, the poor are not able to reap the full benefits of such large investments adds the report.
The administrative capacity of poorer states is typically low coupled with a range of implementation problems. While states with higher poverty are allocated more funds from the central budget, they have the lowest capacity to spend effectively, it says.
India's Poor Yet To Benefit From Anti-poverty Programs
It has been amply clear from field experiences that State Governments & Union Government of India have been implementing a plethora of programs to alleviate poverty and for the benefit of poor but no tangible results have yet been realised. There have been too a number of studies and surveys clearly pinpointing benefits not reaching to intended beneficiaries. The main reasons are already known to the Governments but hard decisions are not being taken to put the system in order. While politicians in collusion with Government bureaucrats always design programs with core intention to mobilie votes and extract sizeable amount by way of corruption, implementers have no Concern and Commitments to implement programs to see that expected benefits reach to intended beneficiaries, implementaion system and mechanism totally lack of Good Governance and Accountability for results. In this context it is important to understand the role of beneficiaries as participants to raise voice and put pressure on their elected representatives and the role of media to bring out on a continuing basis the critical shortcomings of programs at village,district, State and national level and making politicians, Government officials and implementers accountable to people and tax payers of the country. Unless revolutionary changes are brought out in country's election process and review of administrative procedures ever five years the programs shall not yield expected results. There is also a feeling that crores of tax payers hard earned money is wasted in conducting studies and preparing voluminous reports. Dr Amrit Patel, Edison NJ 08837 USA[732-553-0825] amrit_rppatel@yahoo.com
India's Poor Yet To Benefit From Anti-poverty Programs
It has been amply clear from field experiences that State Governments & Union Government of India have been implementing a plethora of programs to alleviate poverty and for the benefit of poor but no tangible results have yet been realised. There have been too a number of studies and surveys clearly pinpointing benefits not reaching to intended beneficiaries. The main reasons are already known to the Governments but hard decisions are not being taken to put the system in order. While politicians in collusion with Government bureaucrats always design programs with core intention to mobilie votes and extract sizeable amount by way of corruption, implementers have no Concern and Commitments to implement programs to see that expected benefits reach to intended beneficiaries, implementaion system and mechanism totally lack of Good Governance and Accountability for results. In this context it is important to understand the role of beneficiaries as participants to raise voice and put pressure on their elected representatives and the role of media to bring out on a continuing basis the critical shortcomings of programs at village,district, State and national level and making politicians, Government officials and implementers accountable to people and tax payers of the country. Unless revolutionary changes are brought out in country's election process and review of administrative procedures ever five years the programs shall not yield expected results. There is also a feeling that crores of tax payers hard earned money is wasted in conducting studies and preparing voluminous reports. Dr Amrit Patel, Edison NJ 08837 USA[732-553-0825] amrit_rppatel@yahoo.com
Post new comment