To make the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat effective, the underlying economic philosophy was to focus on development at the macro level and improve the efficiency of government programs at the micro level. The particularly recurring theme of ‘process improvement’ of the Economic Survey 2021-22 and the social welfare programs discussed in Chapter 10 tell the story of India’s pioneering initiatives in this direction. The dual approach aims to enable the economic growth needed to generate resources for welfare programs while reducing inequality in the society – through well-targeted welfare schemes as well as a strong social infrastructure.
Tightly battling the relentless pandemic, India has emphasized on delivering a coherent response to the health consequences of the pandemic – while balancing lives and livelihoods – while cushioning the vulnerable sections of society. With vaccination coverage of the adult population now with respect to the first dose and around 70% with the second, India continues on a war footing against the pandemic, charting an impressive socio-economic track record through public participation. Similar to the economic stimuli injected under the umbrella of Atma Nirbhar Bharat and Budget 2021-22, the healthcare sector in India is also nitro-boosted with isolation beds, dedicated intensive care unit beds, massive infrastructure for medical oxygen supply. was provided through the creation of Production of COVID vaccines.
Healthy trends in the social sphere Atmanirbhar describes the complete success of India’s vision. First, the creation of formal jobs has been a major policy priority for the government, and the evidence of this aspiration being met is overwhelming. While only 61.1 lakh net enrollments in the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) – which manages workers’ social security funds in the organized/semi-organized sector in India – were seen in 2018-19, the number increased to 77.1 lakh in 2020-21. happened. This year, as of November 2021, the net growth in payrolls has already crossed 82.4 lakhs.
Second, with regard to the formality of jobs in 2019-20 as compared to 2011-12, the prevalence of casual labor in rural (7.6 percentage points) and urban (1.2 percentage points) areas as per the PLFS and NSSO-EUS reports. There has been a decline and an increase in the share of regular wage/salaried employees by 4.6 and 5.7 percentage points respectively in both. Additionally, in the galaxy of self-employed workers, own account worker and employee is more prevalent – reflecting the strong start-up ecosystem rooted in India.
Third, in the regional distribution of the workforce, the share of agriculture has declined from 49% to 45.6% between 2011-12 and 2019-20, the share of services has increased from 24% to 25.1%, and the share of industry has increased from 27% 29.3 is done. , The economic transition from agriculture to industry and services is evident. Fourth, the continued emphasis on ‘skills at scale’ has increased the share of persons aged 15-59 years receiving vocational training from 8.1% (2017-18) to 13.9% (2019-20).
Further, there has been no reduction in the budgetary priority for the social sector. According to the Union Budget documents, the share of social services in the total expenditure of the central government increased from 3.7 per cent in 2014-15 to 5.0 per cent in 2015-16 and thereafter to 5.7 per cent in 2019-20. Budget 2021-22 raised the share of the social sector to an all-time high of 6.3 per cent. The findings of NFHS 5 – together with the findings of NFHS 4 – explain the consequences of increased allocation.
In a strong testament to the success of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, the sex ratio at birth for children born in the last five years increased from 919 females per 1000 males in 2015-16 to 929 in 2019-21. The population living in households with better sanitation facilities increased from 48.5% in 2015-16 to 70.2% in 2019-21, confirming the success of the Swachh Bharat Mission. The Ujjwala scheme – focusing on improving households’ access to clean cooking fuel – has catalysed its use from 43.8% in 2015-16 by covering 58.6% of households in 2019-21.
Between 2015-16 and 2019-21, intensive monitoring and convergence action plan-based National Nutrition Mission enabled stunted, weak and underweight children to be reduced by 2%, 2% and 4%, respectively. Chapter 10 of the survey examines the good news seen with respect to drinking water, rural housing and roads and health infrastructure, as well as progress in education, employment and the widening of the social safety-net Is. It’s all about development!
The writer is Assistant Director, Department of Economics, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance. Thoughts are personal.
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