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A Meeting with the Honorable Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh

Nirupam Bajpai and the Honorable Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh
Nirupam Bajpai, Director, South Asia Program (left), with the Honorable Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India in New Delhi on July 1, 2005.

On July 1, 2005, Nirupam Bajpai, Senior Development
Adviser and Director of the South Asia Program at the Center on
Globalization & Sustainable
Development (CGSD), met with the Honorable Prime Minister of India,
Manmohan Singh, in New Delhi to discuss how The Earth Institute
can help India expand the delivery of needed services to rural
areas. CGSD is part of the Earth Institute of Columbia University.

The Earth Institute: What was the purpose
of your meeting with Prime Minister Singh?

Nirupam Bajpai : After more
than a decade of economic policy reforms, India is experiencing tremendous economic growth. CGSD is working with India’s government to research and advise on new opportunities for economic and social development. Prime Minister Singh invited me to this meeting to discuss ways to scale-up government services in rural India. We also talked about financing and reform of India’s
health sector, the major challenges that India faces in order to
meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as ways to
enhance India’s foreign assistance to Africa.

Q:What are some of the rural services that India’s population needs and how will these services enhance the country’s economic growth?

A: There are five key areas in rural India that need much
higher levels of public investment. They are: access to safe drinking water,
primary health, primary education, and availability of power and rural roads,
especially to the regional markets. Fortunately, there is a vast amount of
economic reform that can be carried out to improve conditions in rural India,
particularly in the Gangetic valley. I believe that the key step in the hugely
populous, mainly rural, and inward-oriented Gangetic states, especially Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar, is to improve the most basic infrastructure so that the
people can take part in more rapid national economic growth. They will do
so through increased exports to coastal states, and greatly improved productivity
for local production.

Rural India needs a new social contract in which
there will be a reliable infrastructure supplied at commercial prices rather
than given for free. The Government’s commitment, both at the national and state levels,
should be that every village will be assured basic physical and social infrastructures;
but also that every village will be responsible for covering the commercial
costs of those services (with the exception of populations below the poverty
line) on a normal user-fee basis. It is very encouraging to find that Prime
Minister Singh’s government has taken on this huge challenge and is
working hard to achieve these goals.

Q: Are these same services related to achieving the Millennium Development
Goals?

A: Most of these services also figure into the MDGs, however,
in some areas the goals set by the Government of India are more ambitious
than the targets set in the MDGs. While India is making great strides toward
the first of the Millennium Development Goals, reducing extreme poverty,
it is likely to miss several of the other goals related to hunger, disease
and environmental sustainability.

Q: What is India’s
role and responsibility in providing foreign assistance to Africa?

A: India is one of the fastest
growing economies and by all accounts is likely to emerge as a major player
in the world economy by 2020. The experiences of India’s development over the decades, especially
in rural South India, can suggest lessons for sub-Saharan Africa. I believe
India can offer a lot to Africa, not necessarily in financial terms, but
with its vast expertise and experience in the areas of agriculture and Green
Revolution, agro R&D, rural small-scale industry, non-conventional energy,
and information technology.

Q:How was your meeting with the Prime Minister
received?

A: The Prime Minister said that he welcomed our insights
on improving governance in rural areas and looked forward to CGSD’s project
report, which we plan to present to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Chairman
of the Planning Commission and the State Governments of Uttar Pradesh and
Madhya Pradesh in November.

Q:What was it personally like to meet with
the leader of the largest democracy in the world and the second most
populous country in the world?

A: I have had the high honor and
privilege to serve informally as an advisor to the former Prime Minister
of India, the Honorable Atal Bihari Vajpayee, from October 1999 through
May 2004, and subsequently to Prime Minister Singh since June 2004. Being
that India is the largest democracy in the world, I believe that the job
of the Prime Minister of India is one of the most challenging and demanding
for any political leader in the world today. Personally, the last six years
of advising the Prime Ministers of India has been a great opportunity for
me to contribute in small ways towards India’s growth
and development. India is extraordinarily lucky to have Dr. Manmohan Singh,
a world-respected development economist as its Prime Minister. I believe
under Dr. Singh’s leadership, India will continue to grow even faster
in the years ahead and that will help the country to rapidly reduce poverty
and to eventually eradicate it.

The Earth Institute at Columbia University is among the
world’s leading academic centers for the integrated study of Earth,
its environment, and society. The Earth Institute builds upon excellence
in the core disciplines—earth sciences, biological sciences, engineering
sciences, social sciences and health sciences—and stresses cross-disciplinary
approaches to complex problems. Through its research, training and global
partnerships, it mobilizes science and technology to advance sustainable
development, while placing special emphasis on the needs of the world’s
poor.

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