Special Social Development Corridor Can Ensure Inclusive Growth

BANGALORE: Can the new NDA government break the existing political vendetta in the administrative system and open space for all chief ministers, irrespective of their political affiliation, to collectively work and take ownership of the much-awaited nation building process and help achieve the much needed growth in selected worst performing states on major human development indicators?

In this direction, a national program with focus and complete concentration on specific areas and issues can be an option to bring balanced inclusive growth in the country.

There are human development issues with international significance and implications that require urgent national attention in spite of the fact that they may come under the purview of the states.

The recent Millennium Development Goals (MDG)-14 report took pot shots at India's progress on vital human development indicators. The report revealed that almost 82 percent of people defecate in the open in India and Nigeria; almost one-third of all global maternal deaths are concentrated in India, with an estimated 50,000 deaths (17 per cent) annually; India had the highest number of under-five deaths in the world in 2012 at 1.4 million and one-third of the world's 1.2 billion extreme poor lived in India alone.

It is also shocking to find that more than 70 percent households in five states do not have any form of sanitation facilities. The toilet coverage for these five states is also below 20 percent, as reported in Census-2011.

Large sections of the population living in extreme poverty and face acute health and social problems.

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