Indira Gandhi guided the Congress to win 342 seats in a House of 518 in 1971 on the strength of the garibi hatao slogan. A 20-point programme was put in place to give it concrete shape. Official statistics revealed that it helped 15 million families to acquire productive assets for raising their incomes. The National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) and Rural Landless Employment Generation Programme (RLEGP) generated 2030 million mandays of employment. Clean drinking water could be supplied to 2.07 lakh villages. Rural electrification was given a boost with 1,21,005 villages being provided with electricity. An estimated 1.7 million pump-sets were energized. Socialism thrived during her garibi hatao phase (1969-77) when several industries were nationalised and income-tax collection rose to 97.75 per cent. However, the GDP growth remained stuck at 3.5 per annum.

In the 1980s, during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister, economic liberalisation, the government’s spending spree, and conspicuous consumption by the upper, middle, and affluent classes led to a 5.5 per cent rise in GDP growth. But the spending spree was based on unsustainable foreign borrowings. This had an adverse impact on the balance of payments position.

Narasimha Rao, though not a free-market ideologue like Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, always spoke in terms of the middle path. He sought to execute his vision through his finance minister, Manmohan Singh. The government was focused on the economic reforms that were launched in 1991. The economy was exposed to the world and a deregulatory regime followed. The policy yielded dividend, registering 7.5 per cent GDP growth during the mid-1990s.

Indira Gandhi&’s garibi hatao programme was restructured during the term of UPA-I, headed by Manmohan Singh with special emphasis on SCs, STs and OBCs. It envisaged food security, housing for all, clean drinking water, education and health for all, women, child and youth welfare, and e-commerce. One of the major initiatives was the MGNREGA which the World Development Report of 2014 described as ‘a stellar example of rural development’. It provided the rural poor with a safety-net during drought, floods or a failed harvest. It was structured as a legal right and not just a one-time scheme.

GDP grew at the rate of 8 per cent on an average from 2006-07 to 2011-12. Meanwhile, skeptics raised the question whether economic reforms are at all consistent with poverty eradication. Pro-reformists argued that economic reforms and garibi hatao are compatible provided the poor are empowered in letter and spirit through better education and improved health services. The poor can become stakeholders in the benefits of the reforms process provided the government plays the role of an ‘enabler’ and not that of ‘a provider’ for the poor. Lakdawala Expert Group Methodology indicates that rural poverty declined to 2.07 per cent from 39.28 per cent in 1987-88 to 37.21 per cent in 1993-94; it further declined to 26 per cent in 1999-2000. There was a sharp fall of 11.21 per cent between 1993-94 and 1999-2000.

The Tendulkar committee estimated that poverty level fell from 37.2 per cent (in 2004-05) to 21.9 per cent (in 2011-12). As doubts were raised about these figures, the committee headed by C.Rangarajan, chairman, PM&’s Economic Advisory Council, pegged the number of poor at 29.5 per cent of the population (and not 21.9%) in 2011-12. Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor to the government, admitted on 26 May that ‘the rate of poverty reduction during the period from 2005-06 to 2011-12 was the fastest in the history of the country’. One major reason was the rapid growth in GDP during the UPA dispensation.

The BJP hardliners, who were against economic reforms when in the Opposition, are now reconciled to second generation reforms. Poverty alleviation and social welfare/security measures have been accorded priority. Higher budgetary allocation on MNREGA – Rs.34,699 crore during the current fiscal against Rs.31,000 crore in the revised budget of the last fiscal – is one indicator.

The NDA government is all set to revamp and rename the 20-point programme – the cornerstone of Indira Gandhi&’s garibi hatao. After restructuring several of the UPA government&’s schemes, the government is considering five options for the programme, which will be renamed as Raja Rammohan Roy Jan Kalyan Prativedan Lakshya. The options include Deen Dayal Upadhyaya social development goals, Veer Savarkar Samajik Vikas Lakshya, Dr BR Ambedkar Samajik Uthan Lakshya, and Sardar Patel National Statistical Mechanism. An inter-ministerial group has been constituted for identification and development of social indicators for the states. It is scheduled to report by 30 September. The distinctive feature of the revised programme is the thrust against subsidies. The noted economist, Milton Friedman, once mooted the possibility of rolling all subsidies into a single lump-sum cash transfer to households as the instrument of an efficient and equitable welfare policy. Mexico and Brazil are the pioneers of transferring cash to poor families on condition that their kids attend school and are vaccinated. It has proved to be an effective way to reduce poverty and improve health and well-being. The government subsidises a wide range of products and services – rice, wheat, pulses, sugar, kerosene, cooking gas, naptha, water, electricity, fertilizer, railways etc – to make them affordable for the poor. The cost of these subsidies is about 4.2 per cent of GDP. Regretfully, subsidies are plagued by leakages; as often as not, they reach people who do not need them.

A Social Welfare Policy with the acronym JAM – JanDhan, Aadhar, Mobile – is on the anvil to alleviate poverty. JanDhan is designed to give the poor access to financial services, including bank accounts, credit and insurance. Aadhar will equip all Indians with biometric identification cards. Together with “mobile money platforms”, cash will be transferred to those in need.

As of now, nearly 118 million bank accounts have been opened through JanDhan. About 1 billion citizens have been provided with the Aadhar card. And half the population use mobile phones. JAM will, therefore, play a crucial role in reducing poverty if all subsidies are lumped into a single cash transfer to households making it an effective welfare initiative. There are twin challenges, however. The first relates to identification of eligible beneficiaries and linking their subsidies to their bank accounts. This will need extensive coordination among different state departments and between states and the national government. The latter can provide incentives to states on the basis of performance.

Secondly, India has only 40,000 rural bank branches to serve 6,00,000 villages. Even if beneficiaries have bank accounts, they may live far away from banks making it impossible to collect benefits. So, unless banks facilitate payments through mobile networks, financial inclusion will not reach the remotest areas and the poorest will be deprived of the cash transfer benefit.

The 44-year history of garibi hatao has been replete with political populism and fiscal profligacy. The programme could hardly rise above the half-hearted effort of dole-distribution masquerading as poverty-alleviation. The fallout was manifest in the ridiculous definition of the poverty line – at Rs.32.5 per day per person in urban areas and Rs.29.3 in rural areas. This was stated by the Planning Commission in an affidavit before the Supreme Court.

The proposed experiment to reinvent the programme in the manner of Brazil and Mexico appears to be integral to the second generation reforms and social welfare measures – aimed at addressing the challenges of hunger, malnutrition and poor public health services. The nation looks forward to the report card in 2019.

(The writer is a former Joint Secretary to the Government of West Bengal)