The Hindu : Karnataka News : `11 variants of backwardness hinder human development'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 14, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

`11 variants of backwardness hinder human development'

By Our Special Correspondent

DHARWAD, AUG. 13. There are 11 variants of backwardness that challeng human development in north Karnataka, according to Parthasarathy R. Panchamukhi, director of the Centre for Multidisciplinary Development and Research (CMDR).

Dr. Panchamukhi told The Hindu said that a charter prepared by him could act as guidelines for tackling people's problems in north Karnataka.

Dr. Panchamukhi, who has made a presentation of his views to the Government, which is working on the Karnataka Human Development Report - II, said the northern region of the State was not a homogeneous regional unit, with Bombay Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka areas presenting a distinctly different level of human development.

Below average

The first challenge was the `widespread backwardness' of the region.

Many districts of the region were below the State average in respect of indicators of growth and development.

The number of most backward, more backward and backward taluks as defined by the High Power Committee on Removal of Regional Imbalance was 59 in north Karnataka compared to 55 in south Karnataka.

Of the 39 taluks in the State identified as most backward by the committee, 26 were in the northern region.

Divide

On `relative backwardness,' Dr. Panchamukhi said the north-south divide in Karnataka was discernible and north Karnataka lagged behind in respect of many indicators in general and in respect of almost all human-development indicators.

Another problem faced in north Karnataka, he said, was `contiguous backwardness' of the people in taluks in the region catching up with the developed neighbour.

For instance, the relatively developed Bidar taluk with fairly well developed human-development indicators was encircled by most backward taluks such as Chincholi, Aurad, Humnabad and Bhalki. In some backward taluks in the Hyderabad Karnataka region, only seven of 100 women were literate, he added.

As far as `policy-related backwardness' was concerned, Dr. Panchamukhi was of the view that the entire responsibility for the unsatisfactory scenario could not be thrust on the Government.

The north-south divide in Karnataka had to be bridged through endogenously developed initiatives, he said.

Some of the districts, taluks and villages and people's groups in the region were in deep slumber.

Mere pumping in of funds might not wake them up though the importance of resources could not be underestimated.

`People's sector'

It was time to appreciate the role of the "people's sector". The sector, which was active some time ago, had been killed due to institutionalisation of development, he said.

Besides, there was the `dynamics of backwardness'. With the human-development indicators not showing much improvement in north Karnataka, the low level of initiatives for human development had brought about the challenge of a "feeling" of backwardness.

The challenge of intensity of backwardness arose out of the fact that in most of the backward districts in the northern region, the maximum human-development indicators were much smaller than those in other parts.

There were areas such as "complementary" and "unnoticed" backwardness, which could be understood through microlevel studies.

The CMDR had developed 42 such indicators for Dharwad and Belgaum districts, he said.

The region also suffered from some natural handicaps, which had to be overcome through area-specific and population-group-specific human development.

A non-governmental organisation could be involved in preparing region specific plans and to monitor their implementation, Dr. Panchamukhi said.

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