ABSTRACT
The Editor asked me to write on rural distress. I expect they thought I would spell out the poor and evaluate the strategy of rural development to avoid the fact that the really poor get left out. Also asking the States to identify the poor as Rangarajan and others before and after him defined the poverty line and entitlements. But one gets bored of repeating all the arguments again and anyway since I was the fellow who said a decade ago that Gujarat and other States had indicator based poverty surveys as now required by the Planning Commission for implementing food security; and that who said that there should be only one line for all entitlements, 1 its déjà vu to repeat all that. The Food Security Bill and MNREGA was passed and it seems better to get back to the village and see how we can have sustained agricultural and rural development growth as the basis of food security and avoiding distress. 2 Many years ago I had modelled in the Plans that redistribution always needs to be intertwined with growth. 3 I am not an Ashok Gulati fan, who says don’t have an employment and food security scheme because 100 per cent desi ghee agricultural growth takes care of all that. I know that in high growth areas poverty still remains and co-relations of growth with reduced poverty (and there Gulati is right) don’t help the women and men and their children left out. But any food security scheme will only work best in the larger context of widespread and diversified agricultural and rural growth and in that sense Gulati is again right. So back to the village with some stories to anticipate what will really happen and what to do about it. And then some macro analytics.
