Thinking Beyond GDP - Measuring India's Progress

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Ever since the world got aware of industrial revolution and the meaning of growth as a meager indicator of just economic well being, we are only in the process of enhancing the economic development ignoring the other side of growth, the social development. GDP is the standard measure of economic growth and India has been able to achieve a high GDP of 9 percent and an average of 8.7 percent on the back of wide ranging structural reforms over the last decade. Inspite of the rapid growth, India still lags behind many other developing nations on various key indicators on the global scale.GDP measures the economic value of goods and services produced and consumed and do not take into account the environment cost that has been incurred in the process. Considering the above factor, India needs an altogether different metric to measure its real progress apart from the media and political obsessed GDP which has failed to measure the actual progress of the country. Though this has called for different metrics to measure the progress of a nation, developing a single unique metric that would tell us about all the key indicators like quality of life, HDI, poverty levels, Ginni coefficient, mortality rate, gender inequality, employment, environment sustainability, etc is difficult and has a lot of challenges. This is why policymakers argue that they need a single number to measure and compare the growth of all countries and GDP alone facilitates the purpose. However, this article is one of those many attempts to pursue the quest to get beyond GDP with special reference to India.

The robust industrial development apparently accompanied by massive technological advancement followed by rapid economic growth has resulted in more destruction than the benefits that we initially imagined of establishing by growing the seeds of industrial revolution. There are various economic and natural catastrophe we have witnessed in the past to support the above mentioned fact which we tend to ignore and continue to indulge in the process of making the same mistakes by not learning a lesson from it. The hard truth of our ignorance is that the ramifications are just going to be severe than what we have experienced so far.

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It is known that India is one of the fast growing nations of Asia, next to china which is considered as its biggest competitor. Though china and India are part of the same continent both the countries has a lot of economic, political and social differences. So comparing India with china to measure the progress of India doesn't make sense and by doing so, will not give a true picture about India’s progress. Considering that India is a vast country with a growing population of 1.2 million people, an indicator that measures the development of its human resources which is considered as India’s key asset would be a wise choice for measuring its progress. One of the several factors contributing to the development of an emerging nation like India is education and few international studies on developing countries reveal that there is a strong relation between education and economic development.

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Education has always played a significant role in the growth of Indian economy but the same system has also failed to achieve the desired results. The Indian education system for a long time has undergone serious criticism. The education here is mainly based on just teacher-student interaction in classroom and rote learning. However, it is good to see that this has been changing over time. The primary and secondary education in India has grown significantly both in terms of numbers and standard but the tertiary education in India is in a pathetic situation. The tertiary education is not given its due importance and it is evident as none of the Indian universities are ranked even among the top 200 global universities. This is basically because of the lack of quality teachers, poor infrastructure and refined coursework. The literacy rate is 74% of which male and female literacy is 82.14% and 65.46% respectively. This also highlights gender inequality and India’s male chauvinism. Another fact to highlight the situation, the OECD for international student assessment program ranked India 72 out of 73 on global educational survey.  Lack of enough funding by the government is also one of the primary reasons of the poor education system. The government expenditure on education in the last budget was Rs. 65,869 crore which is very low compared to global standards.

A proper and efficient planning for improving education can work wonders for India’s progress as India constitute more number of young population with big dreams  waiting to unleash their potential. It is high time we stop saying children’s are the building blocks of India’s future and start building a bright future for each and every children from all economic backgrounds for as they shape the fate of India. Good education is the only mean by which we can measure real progress and thereby economic and sustainable development. We need to lay out certain ideas and changes in policy that would pave way for a holistic education environment.

• ·         The Right to Education Act should be made a mandatory one and more aware to each and everyone particularly to the weaker economic section
• ·         Providing and improving the necessary quality infrastructural facilities that would inspire students to pursue their education here and for overall development of education system
• ·         Increasing support by the government by launching more schemes like mid day meals and giving freebies like laptops to encourage students from economically backward section into the education stream
• ·         Providing scholarships and timely financial help should be made clear that it is not government’s role alone and hence encourage private and financial sector to actively take role in it
• ·         India is a country that yields for incentives, so developing innovative ideas that would benefit the parents economic well being would help in a great way as Indian parents play a crucial role in the education of their ward
• ·         Encourage Public private partnership (PPP) as it is seen as creating innovative models in improving education on par with the global standard
• ·         Create a conducive environment for continuous progress of education by providing regular training and workshops for teachers to enrich and update their knowledge and encourage R&D activities
• ·         Creating an effective regulatory body that overlooks and carries timely inspection to ensure that only quality teachers are appointed

So considering this, education which is seen as a crucial indicator can be used as an input metric which directly affects almost all of the key output metrics mentioned above to measure the progress of India.  A good education produces more literate persons  who turn out to be responsible citizens with more civic and eco awareness safeguarding the environment, choosing the right government to lead and be more conscious while taking decisions to make the world a better place to live. The recent victory of Aam Aadmi in Delhi shows the power of a progressive educated nation.

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world". – Nelson Mandela

A country can be truly progressing only when its entire population is happy and content in all aspects. India is seen as a laggard and falls back on this regard. So India really needs to develop an index that measures all the factors that represents the quality and happiness of its citizens. The primary concern of the political leaders of India should shift from industrial development to sustainable development. India can take clue from international agencies such as UNO and OECD that has recently initiated indices like Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and Your Better Life Index in which various factors that concerns everyone is taken into account. The same way India’s policymakers and economists can join hands with political leaders and develop a similar index that not only measures the economic but also social well being of its people.

The most important thing about developing an index of that sort is that it gives a more reliable and accurate number as it is directly evaluated from the responses of the people by actively engaging the public. A country’s primary assets are its citizens and its natural resources. A large country like India should adopt and insist on a unique index like the ones mentioned above to change and go up on the ladder of real holistic development. India being a diverse country with 29 states is known as united India and can achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when each state is given maximum freedom and discretion to formulate and implement its own policies that maximizes the needs of all the economic agents by achieving inclusive and sustainable growth.