Dr. Nirupam Bajpai shares mantras for sustainable development

Dr. Nirupam Bajpai shares mantras for sustainable development

Dr. Bajpai is Senior Development Advisor & Director, SAP, Center on Globalization & Sustainable Development, The Earth Institute at Columbia University
The days of American glory are now behind. The seeds of this downfall were sown in 1980 with President Ronald Reagan's idea of Reaganomics: Dr. Nirupam Bajpai

Dr. Nirupam Bajpai, Senior Development Advisor & Director, South Asian Program, Center on Globalization & Sustainable Development, The Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York, USA, was at BIMTECH on 3rd April 2011, to interact with the students and faculty on the theme “India and China in the Global Economy”.
Dr. Bajpai began his discourse with some broad but insightful remarks on Indians and India’s development story. “Solution is there for all problems; what is missing is action on ground. Indians are not good team players, especially in public policy. There is a lack of attention to rural sector. If the policy is not right, the investment will not be right,” said Dr. Bajpai.
Since 2004, Dr. Bajpai has been an economic advisor to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and many of his Cabinet ministers. He has also been an economic advisor to the former Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and several of his Cabinet ministers.
According to him, the ideas that he takes to the Prime Minister and his Ministers, are the outcome of his learnings from villages and the rural sector.
In his global overview, he began by commenting that the US economy was on a decline and there was no revival in sight. He remarked, “The days of American glory are now behind. The seeds of this downfall were sown in 1980 with President Ronald Reagan’s idea of Reaganomics, which propagated privatization and deregulations. The subsequent presidents- George Bush, Sr. (1988-92), Bill Clinton (1992-2000), George Bush, Jr. (2000-08), also did not focus much on economy.”
US economy is not in good shape, opined Dr. Bajpai, and with the rising of China and India, it is becoming worse for them.
Touching upon China, Dr. Bajpai informed that there were only two countries in the world that began with economic reforms without any preceding economic crisis- China and South Korea. Agricultural reforms were initiated in China in 1978; but, did not work for the lack of a clear political ideology. However, one smart move of locating SEZs in the coastal areas, where nobody would, normally, prefer to live owing to very tough condition, made China the “world factory” manufacturing even furniture for US homes. As a result, it not only witnessed an export-led double-digit economic growth rate, but also became engine of global economy. At the same time, China faces two major challenges: political reforms and climate change, according to Dr. Bajpai.

Talking about Sub-Saharan Africa, countries like Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya, Dr. Bajpai remarked that they were very poor, and 45-50 years behind India in development. It is like India was before Green revolution. More than 400 (out of every 1,000) women die during child birth. They depend on the rest of the world for practically everything.

“It is a very sad story. The world has not paid enough attention and much more is required than what is being done,” said Dr. Bajpai.

Coming back to India, Dr. Bajpai referred to the 1991 initiative to open up the economy taken by the then Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, which led to a surge in growth, especially in IT and Telecom. He also stated the following three as the main challenges facing the country today:
1. How to sustain the high growth rate for the next 25 years;
2. How to ensure that the growth was inclusive- benefiting the bottom 20%; e.g., there is a need for 16m jobs p.a., but we are doing only 2m. The private sector must be given the right climate to create jobs. But, the difficulty could be because the labor laws were under State governments; and
3. Planning and managing climate change.
Further, Dr. Bajpai referred to Public Health and Education as the two most critical areas needing proper attention and timely action. According to him, “We have neglected Public Health. There are hardly any schools, except for Dr. Shreenath Reddy’s Public Health Foundation of India. Similarly, enough attention has not been paid to primary education in India but education cess of 2% is one definite action.”
According to Dr. Bajpai, what was needed was “political awakening”. In the next one decade or so, “action on the ground” would make all the difference. Growth in the next 35-40 years would help emerge a different India, wherein the social side would be very important. Investment in clean water and immunization would be saving spending on Public Health with lesser number of Public Health Centres required.

In the QA session, quite a few questions were asked by the students. One after the other, the questions kept coming in a buzz. These questions ranged from implementation of the existing public policies to how students could make a difference in the management of the public and social sector. One of the questions pointed out that how despite having the adequate resources; the objective of public health professionals was still not being fulfilled. Dr Bajpai gave a comprehensive answer how the problem was not resources but the actual utilization of these resources. He also explained with references to the ‘barefoot doctors’ of China. Finally, according to Dr. Bajpai, what India needs the most at the moment is “collective thinking”, “political will’ and “performance orientation”.