“Without strong government participation there will be no development of essential services,” said Ben Philips, Oxfam’s acting regional director. “There is a lack of investment and political will.”

Economist Jean Dreze, writing the foreword to the report, has asked for “free and universal” delivery of essential services like primary education and healthcare. This view is controversial as the government has been moving towards targeting and rationalising public services in India. “It is certainly import to reaffirm the notion that ensuring universal access to essential services is a social responsibility...” argues Dreze.

The report is especially critical of India's inability to supply adequate medical services, saying it was causing millions of unnecessary deaths, particularly infant and maternal mortality. “Every half an hour six nameless Indian women die in childbirth,” said the report’s author, Swati Narayan, noting that only 40 per cent of rural clinics have labour rooms. The relatively high costs of medicine for the poor also deterred many from seeking medical treatment.

Other problems in India were identified as 70 per cent of the population lacking access to toilets, 170 million people with no clean drinking water and a primary school dropout rate of 38 per cent, according to Oxfam and UN figures. “There has been an utter failure in our systems to deliver services,”acknowledged Planning Commission member Saida Hameed, adding that health problems were exacerbated by a severe gender bias in India. “A girl in India is up to 50 per cent more likely to die before her fifth birthday than her brother,” she said.

These issues were being addressed very seriously by the Indian government, said Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen. He said the plan called for school dropout rates to fall 20 per cent and to cut maternal mortality by three-quarters to one death per 1,000 births by 2012.

“These are all achievable targets that don't require much in the way of resources or time to achieve them,” he said.

‘Take a cue from them’

Oxfam listed positive developments in the countries and said they presented an example to be followed by others. The report singled out Sri Lanka as an example of a developing country that has achieved universal free schooling, drastically reduced infant mortality rates and boosted life expectancy to levels comparable to developed countries. Bangladesh was also praised for achieving equality in school enrollment between boys and girls.