China to Take Lessons from India in Social Sector

Bangalore: China ranks higher on nearly all social indices and is noted for its massive administration. But it has turned to India to learn how to deliver key social programmes in a better way to its citizens and to develop its civil services.

Beijing told Indian officials that they want to study India's mid-day meal (MDM) scheme and integrated child development scheme (ICDS), which are the world's largest school lunch and early childcare programmes, as reported by Charu Sudan Kasturi and Jayanth Jacob for Hindustan Times.The mid-day meal feeds over 100 million children every day, covering all government schools till class eight.

In November Chinese officials used the platform of the E-9 - a group of the world's nine most-populated developing countries, which met in Delhi to communicate their wish to learn from these schemes.

China also wants to pick up tips from India's administrative services to develop and revise its governance services. India's stock market has also caught the attention of China.

In May 2010 India and China signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for cooperation in civil services, personnel management and public administration.

Though India and China share a controversial border, fought a war in 1962 and are lodged in an international race for resources to push their growing economies, they work together in other areas like climate change.

An Indian official involved with the talks on the social sector schemes said to HT "These requests represent rare stamps approval for Indian governance from China. And the recognition comes as encouragement - clearly we're doing some things right."

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