Making India Strong in Long Term

Modi regime characterised by minimum govt, maximum governance shouldn’t lose sight of welfarism including health, education, electoral propriety and internal security while trying to ramp up economic growth, writes DC Pathak

- DC Pathak

I a democratic state economic advancement measured largely through GDP has to go with ‘weifarism’, the strength state derives from its large population has to match its capacity to reach out to every citizen and the state draws its sustainability from a combination of ‘minimum government’ and ‘maximum governance’.

India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has moved towards these goals in a substantive manner, and more is being done to fully achieve them. An illustration of how the nation’s image could suffer before the world outside is the pathetic sight of children in large numbers being brought up on pavements in metropolitan towns, without education, nutrition and even adequate protection against the weather, who may grow up as citizens with unsure credentials.

The challenge has to be met upfront and the Centre needs to step in - notwithstanding the Centre-State division of powers - for this was not connected merely with ‘welfare’ but with the responsibility of the state to identify and know all its citizens in pursuance of good governance. A democratic state has to take care of the ‘have-nots’ too, beyond those who had financial adequacy or who even contributed to the state revenue.

There has to be a deep review of the instruments that exist for strengthening the hands of the state in looking after the poor and the weak.

The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds of the business houses, the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme and the Discretionary Development Fund available with the Collectors, should all be pieced together to ensure that a free Primary School existed in all Panchayat Circles, that a free residential middle school for teaching till class 8 was established in each of the Development Blocks in the country and that locally recruited staff - men and women - were in position to manage them.