Steady economic growth need of the hour

Hyderabad: University of Hyderabad (UoH) has conducted a two day national seminar on Food and Nutritional Security: Role of State at the School of Economics on Tuesday for which Former Governor and Former Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Dr C Rangarajan attended as chief guest.

Addressing the students Rangarajan said, “There have been different stages in evolution of economic thought. At the very beginning, accelerating economic growth was considered as the central problem. As our understanding progressed, it was taken into account that only economic growth is not adequate and it must be substantiated with structural changes for positive outcome. This was followed by inclusion of the idea of equity with growth that must ensure access to basic needs- food, shelter and clothing for one and all.

When issues related with environmental degradation came up, inter-generational growth also became important and sustainable development also became a focus point for economists. Finally, encompassing all previous understanding, today’s economic thought paradigm primarily focuses on human development measures; it’s about enabling people and society not only in terms of building capabilities but also to provide opportunities to engage them productively”.

He further added, that food and nutrition are important for human existence and government has prime role to ensure its access and availability for its citizenry. Poverty elimination has been taken as an important area since independence in our country and it requires necessity to measure the poverty. Earlier attempts to measure people’s deprivation to basic needs were measured in terms of food necessities only so, it missed out many important aspects of non-food needs.

Further, these measures emphasised on calorie measures that didn’t have specific consideration of nutrients such as protein and fat. Accelerated productivity growth, social development equity and provision of proper food, health and education for the people must be prime focus of our economic policies today. And, achieving one aspect doesn’t mean that automatically other aspects will be taken care of. There is need to see these three altogether in conjunction with each other.

Countries like South Korea focused on sustaining high economic growth for almost two decades and it could also realise its fruits for ensuring better welfare measures for its people. However, most countries including India, have taken middle route to keep a balance between growth and social programmes, he opined.

Concluding his lecture, Dr Rangarajan prescribed that the government must focus on high and steady rate of economic growth, adequate focus on social programmes and efficient utilisation of allocated funds and resources; ignoring any one of these will not be a good proposition.