NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Union Budget, former prime minister Manmohan Singh will release a report of Council for Social Development, an independent think-tank, on Monday which has claimed that growing income inequity along with neglect of tribal, Dalits, minorities and other ethnic groups are coming in the way of the balanced socio-economic development of the country.
“Dualistic nature of Indian society, perpetuated by the neglect of Dalits, tribal and other ethnic minorities, farmers along with neo-liberal economic policies have come in the way of balanced social and economic development. Unless India’s policymakers come to grips with these problems, there will continue to be large pockets of poverty, a high degree of economic inequality as well as marginalisation of some social and ethnic groups,” the report has stated.
The report, edited by Prof T. Haque, former advisor of NITI Aayog, and Prof D Narasimha Reddy, argues that political inequality among social groups may further accentuate the problem of inequity, “because unequal distribution and control over resources and political influence would perpetuate institutions that protect interests of the rich to the detriment of the poor”.