Our GDP Needs The HDP

Context: GDP indicates economic growth, while Human Development Product can help us identify and remove inequities and injustices.

Human Development Crisis in India

• Low per capita income: 
  • Even before the pandemic, the median household income in India was Rs 15,000 per month. 
  • The bottom 25 % of households (about 300 million people in India) lived on an income of less than Rs 8,500 per month or Rs 70 per day per person.

Constructing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with Human Development Product (HDP): HDP should consist of the following five parameters

• The female labour force participation rate: Depending on what definition you look at, currently, this number is 11 % or 22 %. It is shockingly low.
• The empowerment of women through their economic Independence is central to human development.
• Gender income parity: A comparison of both the median and the 75th percentile of wages of men and women. 
• There is no point in more women participating in the labour force if we continue to give them insecure and lower-paying jobs than men.
• Like former US President Barack Obama once said, “if you want to see what a country is like, go and see how it treats its women”, this and the first measure helps in women empowerment.
• Stunting: Stunting amongst children is about 35 %. This number reflects many things directly, for instance, the state of our public health, the nutritional status of our people, and environmental conditions.
• Water quality and availability: This is more difficult to measure, but tracking a few important indicators can suggest the national trends.
• Measure the quality and flow of 10 key rivers at specified geographical points and periodicity, as well as to measure groundwater levels and quality in some of the most stressed areas.
• The quality of polity: For this, we can measure the percentage of members of all our legislatures — state legislatures and Parliament — against whom criminal cases are pending or have convictions.

Conclusion: On this eve of the 75th anniversary of our Independence, we must commit to ourselves that the HDP growth rate will be as much or higher than the GDP growth rate.