The govt should continue to spend on public services, but it is time it handed over cash to the desperately poor—the real aam aadmi
Livemint
First Published: Wed, May 01 2013. 11 34 PM IST
A third of the 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day, the global poverty line from the World Bank, live in India. Photo: AFP
Lant Pritchett of Harvard University told The New York Times this week that it will take about $45 billion of cash transfers to eliminate extreme poverty in the world. A similar amount is spent on movie tickets every year.
A third of the 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day, the global poverty line from the World Bank, live in India. By the Pritchett estimate, it will take around $15 billion—or Rs.80,000 crore—of cash transfers every year to keep these 450 million people above the poverty line.
Is that difficult? The Indian government has spent nearly four times as much on subsidies in fiscal year 2013. It also has an array of ineffective anti-poverty schemes.
Economic growth is still the best antidote against mass poverty. The government should continue to spend on public services. But it is time it handed over cash to the desperately poor, the real aam aadmi.