Villages bore brunt of reforms

BANGALORE: Declaring that rural India has borne the brunt of the economic reforms introduced in 1991, development journalist P Sainath said,“It is 20 years of policy driven neo-liberalisation that has brought rural India to where it is now.”Sainath delivered the Founders Memorial lecture of the Functional Vocational Training and Research Society at the Rotary Club here on Friday, in an event organised to pay homage to Brother Jose Vetticattil, founder of the society.Titled ‘Rural India in 20 years of Liberalisation’, his lecture began with excerpts from a speech by Manmohan Singh that outlined the sacrifices made for development in 1991.Quoting data, he said that the government write-offs for Corporate Direct tax in 2011 was 88 thousand crore, which put together was sufficient to create a Universal Public Distribution System for India. In another example of how the Maharashtra government got rid of famine, he quoted an act in which the government of that state, simply chose to delete the word from all government documents, thus making famine non-existent.“If a decade of 9 per cent growth cannot make a dent on child hunger in India, it’s time to question what kind of growth you had,” he said. Discussing hunger in rural areas and the failure of the mid day meal scheme, he said that in some areas the meal is supplied by private companies that provide children with pre-mix meals which are not based on rural diets.