Decade of Determination to Achieve Sustainable Development

Summary

Prof. U. R. Rao’s T. A. Pai Memorial Lecture (delivered at Hyderabad in January 1997 and published by the Forum of Free Enterprise) frames the next ten years as a decisive window in which India must commit to ‘integrated sustainable development’ or face a catastrophe of mass starvation. Drawing on the 1992 Rio Summit’s language of a ‘defining moment in history,’ Rao opens with a stark stocktaking of post-independence India: a fivefold rise in GNP and self-sufficiency in food grains since 1950, set against 47% illiteracy, 130-per-thousand under-five mortality, a $1,000 per-capita GDP, rank 135 of 175 on the human development index, and a forest cover below 20%. He attributes the gap between aggregate growth and human well-being to runaway population growth, environmental degradation, the negative repercussions of the Green Revolution, and inadequate human-capital investment.

The central argument is that only an aggressive harnessing of science and technology — biotechnology, watershed-based integrated agriculture, INSAT-driven communications, satellite remote sensing, GRAMSAT-enabled distance education, VSATs, and the information super-highway — can deliver fast, sustainable growth. Rao reports concrete watershed pilots in Ananthpur, Ahmednagar, and Panchamahals where integrated strategies recovered drought-prone districts within two years and offers a tour through global telecom developments (Iridium, Teledesic, LEO constellations, DTH-TV, multimedia) to argue that India’s competitive advantage now depends on absorbing these tools rather than on raw natural resources.

In the closing ‘Policy Issues’ section, Rao turns polemical: he attacks the ‘beneficiary-oriented ad-hoc approach,’ the licensing-and-subsidy regime, and what he calls the country’s ‘incestuous obsession with politics’ at the expense of science. Citing economists’ consensus that Import Substitution was a fundamental mistake — a policy that ‘reproduced beautifully the disadvantages of communism without any of its benefits’ — he calls for an 8% growth target, substantial privatisation of energy/transport/communications, higher allocations to education (3% of GDP), health (2%) and R&D (under 1%), and a proactive, rationally tariffed telecom regime to stop the outflow of foreign exchange to overseas satellite operators. The rendered pages end mid-discussion of GATT and the Rio/Montreal accords, just as Rao begins to argue that developing nations cannot compete on equal footing without first building indigenous scientific self-reliance.

Key points

• Frames the coming decade as a make-or-break window for ‘integrated sustainable development’, invoking the 1992 Rio Summit’s ‘defining moment in history’ language.

• Stacks impressive aggregate gains since 1950 (GNP up fivefold, food grains 55 to 190 m.t., life expectancy 30 to 60) against persistent failures: 40% poverty, 47% illiteracy, 66% female illiteracy, infant/child mortality of 130 per thousand, HDI rank 135/175.

• Identifies population pressure, deforestation, soil/water degradation, mega-slum formation, and the ‘very green revolution’s’ negative repercussions as the binding ecological constraints on growth.

• Argues for a biotechnology-and-watershed-led second agricultural revolution to lift food output to 350 m.t. and cites pilot watersheds in Ananthpur, Ahmednagar and Panchamahals as proof that integrated strategies pay back inside two years.

• Treats INSAT, GRAMSAT, VSAT, LEO constellations, digital video compression and the information super-highway as the central infrastructure of a knowledge economy in which ‘information has become the most powerful currency of power’.

• Attacks the licensing-subsidy regime and Import Substitution as having reproduced ‘the disadvantages of communism without any of its benefits’ and demands an 8% growth target with substantial privatisation of energy, transport and communications.

• Calls out underinvestment in human capital — 3% of GDP on education, 2% on health, under 1% on R&D — as incompatible with becoming a competitive knowledge economy.

• Singles out India’s telecom monopoly and ad-hoc uplinking restrictions as a case study in ‘short-sighted policy’ that has pushed private TV networks to uplink from foreign soil and drained foreign exchange.