Thus, Amethi shows clearly that money alone does little to remedy the problems that plague much of north and central India. In all likelihood, even with far larger government spending in the years ahead, in these major regions of the country there will be nothing more than halting progress in terms of poverty or human development.

The situation in Andipatti is more complex. Tamil Nadu’s important initiatives for the poor over the past quarter century — such as cheap rice, quality health services, accessible schooling and mid-day meals — have gone a long way to redressing several widespread deprivations in Andipatti. Add to this the fact that Andipatti’s factories, unlike Amethi’s, do employ poorer youngsters in blue-collar jobs. So Andipatti’s poor would probably be unwilling to trade places with their counterparts in Amethi. Yet, the continuing tragedy of Andipatti is that all these favourable developments, even when combined with the massive inflow of government funds, have proved inadequate to remedy the backlog of poverty, inequity and other developmental failures.

If all that has been attempted in Amethi and even Andipatti is not enough, what more is needed to ensure progress in reducing poverty and other deprivations across rural India?

A first need is to base our economic strategies on the recognition that poverty is far greater in rural India than official estimates suggest. The government’s estimate that roughly one fourth of India’s rural population is impoverished is simply the result of using poverty lines that are set indefensibly low. (For instance, in both rural Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, only people earning less than Rs 365 per month are classified as poor!) In contrast, both the Arjun Sengupta report and the Centre for Policy Alternatives have estimated that roughly 80 per cent of the rural population should be classified as poor, using more realistic poverty lines and welfare indicators. That is the enormous scale of the development challenge remaining in rural India.

... contd.