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'India can end poverty in 8 years at current growth rate, says WB'

India could virtually eliminate its gruelling poverty in the next eight years if it maintains its current economic growth rate, says a new World Bank study.

The study, released in Washington DC on Monday, claims that if India's 6 to 7 per cent growth rates of the past three years are sustained and income distribution remains at the present level, poverty could plummet from its current rate of 35 per cent to 6.3 per cent by the year AD 2005.

The document entitled, 'India: Achievement and Challenges in Reducing Poverty,' recommends a series of steps, including promoting growth, cutting subsidies, and higher investment in infrastructure, health and education to give a ''decisive boost'' to the country's fight against poverty.

In the early 1950s, it points out that nearly half of India's population was living in poverty. Since then, poverty has declined, but at a slow rate. Today, about one-third of the population is poor by the same standards as the early 1950s.

However, because of rapid population growth, even these modest rate of poverty reduction have not been sufficient to reduce the numbers of poor people, which have risen from 164 million in 1951 to 312 million in 1993-94, the bank report adds.

It says India's progress in fighting poverty is modest when compared with some of its East Asian neighbours.

Between 1970 and 1993, the proportion of Indonesia's population living in poverty dropped from 58 to eight per cent, an annual decline of nearly 10 per cent -- a greater decline in 20 years than India has been able to achieve in 50 years.

The world report finds little evidence to prove that India's anti-poverty programmes have yielded gains in the living standards of the poor commensurate with the provision of significant resources.

Many recipients of their benefits are widely recognised as among the poor. At the same time, many of the poorest people do not use these programmes while many of the non-poor benefit from them.

Moreover, it cost the government between two and seven rupees (with the highest value reported for the public distribution system) to provide one rupee to the poor.

The World Bank wants India to formulate an anti-poverty strategy that is fiscally sustainable and more finely targeted to those who truly cannot benefit from the opportunities offered by growth.

The study challenges the presumption that growth tends to marginalise or impoverish significant segments of the population and insists that growth has been the engine of poverty reduction in India.

From the time of the Independence in 1947 to mid-1970s when per capita income grew by a modest 1.7 per cent, the proportion of the population living in poverty declined at an annual rate of just 0.9 per cent. In the years of stronger per capita income growth -- 2.5 per cent between the mid 1970s and 1980s -- the average reduction was almost three times as fast -- 2.4 per cent.

It, however, says India has not yet achieved the momentum needed to lift the great majority of its poor into the economic mainstream.

Infant mortality rates, for example, fell from 145 deaths per thousand per births in the 1950s to 80 at the start of this decade. Yet the Indian rate is still one of the highest in the world. Maternal mortality (437 per 100,000) remains high and accounts for a quarter of maternal deaths worldwide. Life expectancy at birth -- 60 years -- remains well below that of China -- 69 years.

The report also reveals sharp disparities within India, between development-oriented states and those lagging behind, noting that even within states, different regions have achieved markedly varied results.

Kerala saw poverty decline by 2.4 per cent a year -- more than 120 times that of Bihar.

It says that no state in India has effectively combined policies to encourage growth and develop human resources and physical infrastructure. If any state had done so, it would have achieved substantial reductions in poverty.

According to the report, India adopted two main approaches to reduce poverty.

The first is through rural economic growth as witnessed in Punjab and Haryana and the second relies on human resource development which allowed Kerala to reduce its poverty through increased export of skilled manpower, resulting in the inflow of remittances despite modest economic performance.

However, states such as Bihar with low growth rates and low levels of human development made little progress in the fight against poverty, it adds.

UNI