Rohini Nayyar, an eminent economist, a committed policy advisor committed to inclusive rural development and eradication of rural poverty, and a loving and affectionate friend, passed away on 24 October after a prolonged illness.
I first met Rohini when she was the head of the Social Development Division of the Planning Commission in the late 1980s. I was then working on rural institutions and poverty alleviation. I had previously only seen her at a distance at St. Stephen’s College, where I was a student, in the company of her future husband, Deepak Nayyar.
vast experience
When I went to his Planning Commission office, he gave me a warm welcome, and I felt that we had known each other for a long time. She said she was familiar with some of my research, and listened attentively as I detailed my ongoing work, making extremely useful suggestions based on her vast experience in the challenges of rural development. Then she asked if she could help in any way. I hesitated and said that for my fieldwork I needed at least 15 letters to the District Magistrates in my field sites. He immediately called his secretary and wrote and signed 15 letters which were sent within an hour!
He had a lively sense of humour. He nominated me to an expert committee on decentralized rural development, but I often missed meetings because of my travels. Finally, he called me and after a polite reprimand, humorously said that I should at least be present to sign the final report. Relieved, I did.
Rohini’s academic record was excellent. After graduating in economics from Delhi University, he did his B. Lit received. from Oxford and a D.Phil. from the University of Sussex. He was selected for the IAS and served with distinction from 1969 to 1975. However, she longed for more challenging work, which she found as a consultant to high-level UN agencies on issues such as institutions, poverty, landlessness, women’s empowerment and social distancing. safety nets. She brings to her work sharp analytical skills, intense dedication and rich field-experience.
In 2004, he was appointed as the Principal Adviser to the Planning Commission (the post of Secretary to the Government of India). She was responsible for designing MGNREGA, which was launched in 2006. He and I had an animated debate on the minimum wage fixed under this scheme. I argued that this would ration out jobs with the added risk that the poor would be ousted from the better ones. He replied emphatically that the government can do the least that much for the poor and that I should not rely too much on my econometric evidence.
grounded in reality
His reasons were based on reality and a sound intuition. She continued her advisory role by forming committees on a range of topics, including rural poverty, employment, and women’s empowerment, with the deep belief that any of these programs would provide a strong institutional delivery system for integrated rural development, particularly panchayati. will not succeed without it. secret. Had she been alive and active today, she would have strongly supported these initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic and their effective implementation would have saved countless lives.
Rohini also made significant contributions to development economics, including a classic article, “Rural Poverty in Bihar: 1961-62 to 1971-72”. Journal of Development Studies, 1979. Their findings were startling: while the disparity in the distribution of consumption expenditure changed little over this period, all sections of the rural population faced a reduction in per capita expenditure. In addition, rural poverty increased. The “trickle-down” hypothesis was seriously challenged.
Another important and pioneering contribution is his book, Rural Poverty in India: Analysis of Interstate Differences (Oxford University Press, 1991). The novelty of this analysis lies in the formulation of the poverty line keeping malnutrition in mind. This was a sharp departure from the practice of using a poverty line that adjusts the minimum consumption basket for price changes. The comparison between his estimates of rural poverty and his estimates based on the traditional approach is striking. As I (along with two colleagues) published a paper on the poverty-nutrition trap following the seminal contribution of Partha Dasgupta (1993), I agree that policy challenges take on a different dimension. In other words, while the reduction in income cannot be ignored, it is perhaps equally (if not more) important to enhance the nutrition of children, women and workers.
I regret that I did not go to Rohini before she passed away, although I have thought of doing so several times. I was held back partly by COVID-19, but mostly by extreme reluctance to see someone in pain who was so alive.
(Raghav Gaha (Hon) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK and Research Affiliate, Population Aging Research Centre, University of Pennsylvania, US)
rgaiha@sas.upenn.edu