Education seen as vital for inclusive growth

Corruption and poor governance are also obstacles to achieving the goal of development for all sections of the population

Though India is moving towards inclusive growth, lack of education, skills development and vibrant and transparent governance are a few hurdles in progressing towards it at a faster pace. Panellists at a session at the India Economic Summit felt that education is the biggest hurdle in achieving inclusion at a rapid pace. Among the panellists, a large section like Hindustan Construction Corporation Chairman and Managing Director Ajit Gulabchand, Hero Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Pawan Munjal and President of National Chemical Laboratory Raghunath A Mashelkar felt that education and skill development is a must for inclusion to succeed.

“If you ask me to mention two things that are a must for inclusion to be successful, they would be education and education and the rest will follow,” said Gulabchand.

The second concern, which the panellists thought would prove detrimental to the goal of inclusion, is bad governance, and this needs to be looked into.

“It will never be possible to make India a developed country first and weed out corruption later. Along with sound education and skills, we need to weed out corruption from our system,” said Mashelkar.

There are over 100 million migrant workers in India, many of them driven from rural to urban areas. They arrive with no identity, no skills, no protection and no framework of services. This rural-urban shift is now an irreversible trend. This group should be targeted to make the shift quick.

“Social security, food security and protection for the migrant group is vital to help such vast numbers make the transition from rural to urban areas more safely and thus expedite much-needed inclusion,” said Rajiv Khandelwal, executive director of Aajeevika, a non-government organisation working for to uplift the migrants.

The panellists also said that though the private sector is doing a lot for inclusion, more needs to be done. Munjal, after explaining how his company was providing bikes to people in backward regions and also teaching them how to ride safely, said that the corporate sector should travel that extra mile.

“We could call our corporate social responsibility inclusive at times, but not all the time. We should bring them that economic benefit through any initiative of ours. We not to go that extra mile in our initiatives to economically benefit the people,” he said.

It was also felt that innovations should be for the poor and should not only be low-cost but ultra low-cost. The example of the Tata Nano, aimed at “two-wheeler” families, was discussed by Mashelkar. “Any innovation for the poor cannot be a bad business deal, as the product for the poor will also be bought by the rich, but the same cannot be true for any products for the rich,” added Mashelkar.

It was also felt that no single company or government can solve issues such as inclusive growth. Only when working as a collective group — of governments, industry, regulators, NGOs and consumers — in an open and transparent way, can there be hope for progress.

Agriculture is an example – better partnerships can help technology have more impact, as well as improve delivery of crops to market. The key to inclusion is to bring together talent, technology and trust, it was felt.