ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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Multidimensional Poverty as an Instrument of Programmatic Intervention

Conceptual and operational issues for constructing multidimensional poverty indices in India are discussed and the possibilities of its application for strategic interventions are examined in this article. It argues that questions concerning the selection of indicators, data sources, weightages, threshold limits, etc, have to be addressed through a consultative process, keeping it above the short-term politics of the regime.

Atmanirbharta in Statistics and the Thrust on ‘Make in India’

International agencies usually make country comparisons based on statistical indicators founded on globally accepted concepts and definitions. The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister has questioned the adoption of international standards in three key sectors and has suggested developing standards that produce statistical indicators in tune with the national narrative. This is unlikely to help the country’s statistical system. 

Data Discrepancies between National Surveys and Official Reporting

The growing discrepancies between the survey and official data have become a serious issue in recent years. This has allowed researchers, administrators, policymakers, and individuals to take opposite positions on policies, programme or even the political regimes. It is in such a context that this article looks at some of the data anomalies in institutionalised surveys and official sources.

Disastrous Decade for Data

In recent years, the Indian official data has been challenged for many reasons, most of them arising out of the perception that the government is reluctant to release unfavourable data. These doubts have been exacerbated by the controversy posed by the debate around Citizenship (Amendment) Act, National Population Register, and National Register of Citizens and the weakening of established institutions like the National Statistical Commission. The COVID-19 pandemic has further upset the data collection so that the first phase of the decennial population census and the proposed NPR exercise now stand postponed. Questions on credibility of official data and the pandemic-induced problems have come at a time when technology offers solutions to data collection, processing and dissemination. The initiatives launched by the government to improve the statistical system utilise these possibilities.

Citizenship (Amendment) Act

The recently enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act has generated a political churn in the country. Tagging the updating of the National Population Register, a base document to identify “citizens,” to the forthcoming 2021 population and housing census has raised strong objections from several corners, including some state governments, necessitating the home minister to make a statement in Parliament on 14 March 2020. Linking the census and theNPR raises many questions—technical and operational. It is important to go beyond politics to address these concerns.

 

Atal Pension Yojana

The Atal Pension Yojana—an old-age pension scheme for informal sector workers—is a major initiative to ensure fixed monthly pension for the elderly. This is guaranteed by the government through the provisioning of assured rates of interest during the accumulation and distribution period. An analysis of the benefit patterns and recommendations to make the scheme more attractive for the informal sector workers is presented.

Housing for the Urban Poor?

Recent modifications in the credit linked subsidy scheme—an important vertical under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban)—have raised the income limits for eligibility of loans, increased the amount of subsidised loans, relaxed norms with regard to built-up area, and importantly, have included the middle-income group, diluting its core agenda of being “pro-poor.” While this would boost the housing sector, there is risk that subsidies will be cornered by real estate developers, private builders, and the urban middle class. The planners must view this development with concern.

Making Indian Cities Slum-Free

The plan of making urban India slum-free faced serious diffi culties in the Eleventh Plan period and it looks like these will persist in the Twelfth Plan period as well. This article points out that the schemes in operation lack a reliable framework for identifying non-tenable slums and legitimate slum households that are entitled to get dwelling units. Further, the design of the Rajiv Awas Yojana betrays a big-city bias to attract global capital, and there is no clear road map for its time-bound implementation.

Migration and Exclusionary Urbanisation in India

An analysis of migration and urbanisation patterns in recent decades suggests a distinctly declining trend. It can be argued that the migration process has an inbuilt screening system, which is picking up people from relatively higher economic and social strata. The decline in the share of migrants moving in search of employment and an increase in business and study-related mobility further confirms this proposition. In contrast, poverty-induced migration has become a less important component of mobility over time. At the same time, in a bid to attract private capital, urban centres have become less accommodating to the poor, restricting their entry and thereby increasing rural-urban economic inequalities. The strategy of spatially unbalanced growth through "dispersal of concentrations" advocated by the World Bank and others, therefore, needs to be examined with empirical rigour.

Method in Madness: Urban Data from 2011 Census

The 2011 Census has reported a marginally higher growth in the urban population, yet it also reports a phenomenal increase of 2,774 new "census towns" - greater than the number of such new towns identified in all of the 20th century. Could this be the result of some kind of census activism working under pressure to report a higher pace of urbanisation? Since the Census of India has a reputation for rigour, it is imperative that the methodology for identification of new towns and possible changes from the past are made public.

Politics and Economics of Urban Growth

Contrary to popular perceptions about a rapid pace of urbanisation, the fragmentary data in the provisional results of the 2011 Census reveal a decline in demographic growth in districts within the metro cities, suggesting that these have become less welcoming to prospective migrants. Such low and even negative population growth in large cities and their core areas needs further investigation, since it raises concerns about exclusionary urbanisation.

Exclusionary Urbanisation in Asia: A Macro Overview

Studies on internal migration are constrained by the fact that no international organisation systematically collects or tabulates even the basic demographic information on internal migration in a cross-sectionally and temporally comparable manner. Researchers have surprisingly concluded that internal migration within Asian countries is high and increasing over time. This alarmist perspective could be attributed to the projection of urban population made by the Population Division of the United Nations and other national and international agencies. This has guided governments of several countries, leading to measures to control inflow of people for security concerns or to reduce pressure on limited amenities in the destination regions. In this context, the paper examines the proposition that rural-urban migration has accelerated over the recent decades in the Asian countries, particularly during the 1990s, incorporating the history, social fabric and political environment in the explanatory framework.

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