While India shines in the GDP rankings, but its human development profile is in tatters when compared to some of its smaller and poorer neighbours among the SAARC countries, whether it is in access to schools or to toilets.
It is cousins Bangladesh and Pakistan who score when it comes to access to sanitation, a poverty profile of SAARC countries authored by the SAARC secretariat says.
While 44 per cent of Pakistan had access to sanitation by 2004, Bangladesh made the leap from 23 per cent access in 1990 to 48 per cent in 2002. India, in contrast, has moved from a shameful 12 per cent to a mere 30 per cent in 2002.
Again, in enrolment and retention of children in schools up to class five, India has made no strides since 1990. It moved from 57 in 1990 to 65 per cent in 2004. In Pakistan, the improvement in retention was dramatic from 50 per cent in 1990 to 72 per cent in 2004. In Bangladesh, again it improved from 48 per cent to 70 per cent in 2002. In Nepal, it went up from 38 per cent to 76 per cent.
The report, called SAARC Regional Poverty Profile 2005, has little positive to say about the human development profile of India which has been ranked first from the bottom of the pile, according to a ranking done on the basis of its Human Development Indicators. In the HDI ranking done by the UNDP, Sri Lanka followed by Nepal got the top positions though they could not boast of similar strides in terms of per capita GDP, says the report.
If the country's HDI ranking is better than its GDP ranking, then it is recognised as having performed unusually well in terms of human development indicators, it says.
The SAARC report also goes on to profile the seven Asian countries on the basis of a Human Poverty Index which includes a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. The other criteria used are gender development, adult literacy, infant mortality and maternal mortality, access to water and sanitation.
Commenting on health indicators, the report says that except for Maldives and Sri Lanka, the SAARC countries have not been able to enhance their public spending on health.
In addition, while these two countries have well organised public healthcare delivery systems, the other countries (including India) apparently lack effective health service delivery systems.
Asked about the contradiction in terms of poor social gains compared to GDP rates, Prof Sheila Bhalla one of the authors of the report said that the improvement in social sector in poor countries as compared to poor progress made by India was a comment on the priorities of the various countries.
However, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who released the report, said that India's backwardness was only in comparison to the gains made in GDP. It did not literally mean that India was at the bottom of the heap.
He said that the main problems facing India were regarding maternal and infant mortality and education. The Eleventh Plan would be resorting to corrective measures in these areas, he said.
