Needed: A PM’s council for human development

Context: India’s goal should be to be in the top 50 nations of the world by 2047 in human development and at least a rank below 100 by 2030. These need a prime minister-led human development council under the NITI Aayog.

The governing council/ National Development Council itself can be that body with exclusive meetings on human development at least twice a year. All chief ministers, concerned Union ministers and a few experts from these sectors must be a part of this council.

Why India needs a PM’s Human Development Council?

Due to the following factors:

– Providing opportunities to every citizen of India to develop their fullest human potential is not only good for inclusive development; it is necessary for sustaining high rates of economic progress. Evidence from across the world substantiates this.

– Outcomes in the indicators of health, education, nutrition, clean water, sanitation, etc are all inter-related. They depend on a simultaneous improvement in all related sectors, with the gram panchayat or an urban local body as a unit.

– Unfortunately, India neglected human development for decades even though a few IITs and IIMs provided global class human capital for leadership.

• The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the National Rural Health Mission increased the pace of improvement but it was not good enough to change India’s 130 rank in the Human Development Index.

– The thrust on removing the asset deficits of deprived households, in the form of housing, toilets, electricity, cooking gas, among others provides an opportunity for better outcomes in human development.

– PM played a critical role in providing leadership to the chief ministers of all states in the fight against Covid and in the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan. It shows how the partnership between the Centre, state, local governments and community organisations like self-help groups and frontline workers can achieve development outcomes.

– Community connect with the use of technology as a means has the power to speed up infrastructure roll-out for higher growth.

– There’s a need for partnerships between the federal government and the states and local governments for need-based implementation of development schemes.

What indicators need to be monitored?

An illustrative list of 12 key indicators is given below:

1) Monitor stunting among infants. Stunting (child too short for age) reflects chronic undernutrition during the most critical periods of growth and development in early life. It highlights the need for diverse food and timely health check-ups.

2) Wasting among infants (low weight for height) indicates recent and severe weight loss. It happens due to inadequate quantity and quality of food or frequent or prolonged illnesses. These irreversibly affect the learning abilities of a child. Education suffers and illnesses begin.

3) Monitoring anaemia among women and children. Anaemia reflects poor food diversity, besides prevalence of diseases. It also reflects the lack of timely access to primary health care.

4) Monitoring foundational literacy and numeracy among all children under the Nipun Bharat programme.

5) Monitoring the status of youth in schools and skills programmes

6) Monitoring the linking of households to health facilities for holistic primary, secondary, and tertiary care with the Ayushman Digital Health Mission as a means.

7) Seventh, female work participation rate. We need to monitor female employment in every panchayat. Women need opportunities for paid work.

8) Percentage of girls from deprived households in high schools and higher education needs constant monitoring.

9) Funds, functions and functionaries with panchayats and urban local bodies need active involvement of social capital of community organisations.

10) Access to credit for all on the basis of individual micro credit plans.

11) Monitoring the life of the urban poor to improve access to public services, education, health, nutrition, sanitation, housing and the like. Public campaigns to ensure access of services to urban poor are needed.

12) Monitoring market wages and availability of work for men and women. It captures the essence of poverty of households and poverty of regions. The government will need to address inter-panchayat disparities by ranking them.

Source: This post is based on the article “Needed: A PM’s council for human development” published in Business Standard on 15th June 22.