Author: Bibek Debroy
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 5, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/go-figure-development-indicators-in-gandhi-pocket-boroughs/454856/
Purulia, Amethi, Kalahandi and Rae Bareli
-- these are India's most backward regions by any criterion. There is no easy
geographical matching of constituencies with districts, with data usually
available for the latter, not the former. The only organization I know that
has done this matching-cum-mapping is Indicus Analytics and consequent constituency-level
data on socio-economic variables (some social and physical infrastructure)
are available for 2004 and 2008.
The Congress-CPM face-off began with a Congress
statement about Purulia being worse than Kalahandi, and the CPM brought in
Amethi and Rae Bareli. If there are several variables, it is possible a geographical
area performs better than another on some variables, but not on others. Having
said this, across socio-economic variables, it is true one can't really argue
out a case for Purulia being worse than Kalahandi.
But the key question isn't political debating
points. Nor should one get obsessed about whether one constituency or district
is superior to others. Have these constituencies improved significantly over
time? And what is the role of an MP in furthering this improvement? That is
the question one should ask.
And one has variables like poverty rates,
per capita income, agricultural employment, secondary sector employment, literacy,
urbanization, work participation rates, immunization, under-five and infant
mortality rates, electrification, piped drinking water and institutional delivery
to play around with. Tracking progress from 2004 to 2008, what's remarkable
is poverty ratios have increased in Rae Bareli and Kalahandi, immunization
of children has declined in Amethi, Rae Bareli and Kalahandi, percentage households
with electricity connections has declined in Amethi, and per capita expenditure
has declined in Amethi and Rae Bareli.
One should acknowledge there are problems
with data and often one uses extrapolations, interpolations and imputations
to plug gaps. However, this reversal of development (according to some indicators)
is robust enough to warrant serious examination. Is there a statistical issue
because constituencies have been reclassified? Is there a migration issue?
Is there a population growth issue so that per capita indicators exhibit worsening?
I don't know the answer.
In broader reform discourse, there is a difference
between absolute indicators like poverty and relative indicators like inequality.
Higher inequality may be tolerated, if accompanied by reduction in poverty.
However, if absolute indicators show worsening poverty, we do have a problem,
including the serious one about efficiency of public expenditure and delivery
of public goods and services. In that sense, this is more than Congress and
CPM taking potshots at one another.
