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India's first Human Development report has criticised the poor quality of governance, saying excessive controls and regulation are coming in the way of improving the pace of human development.
"Issues of governance have to be addressed on a priority as they impinge on the economic success," the report released on Tuesday said.
According to the report, there has been a significant improvement in human development in the last two decades. The human development index between 1983 and 1993-94 improved by nearly 2.6 per cent per annum and by over 3 per cent per annum between 1993-94 and 2001.
Suggesting a re-look at the structure, composition, functioning and the role of civil administration in the development of the country, it said: "Elimination of unnecessary procedural controls and regulations that stifle entrepreneurial energy, breed corruption and affect the common man has to be [a] priority area for improving governance."
Though a number of governments had from time to time announced 'single window clearance procedures' and 'investor assistance cells', these had rarely been effective on account of inadequate coordination and fragmented and arbitrary exercise of powers of the government vested in a number of functionaries at different levels through a complex delegation of authority, the report said.
The report said rationalisation of such rules, notifying them in a comprehensive and transparent manner, assigning accountability of each [government] functionary and providing administrative and legal recourse were necessary to address this problem.
"Allocation of adequate public resources for furthering human development alone is not enough. It is equally important to use them efficiently and effectively," the report said.
It pointed out that human attainments appeared to be better and more sustained in those parts of the country where there is social mobilisation for human development and where female literacy and empowerment encourages women to have a say in the decision making process at the household level.
The report also pointed out that though economically less developed states were also states with a low HDI, the relation between the HDI and the level of development did not show any correspondence among the middle-income states in the country.
"Some states like Kerala have high attainments on HDI, [but] at the same time there are states like Andhra Pradesh or even West Bengal where HDI values are not as high," it said.
The report said there were wide disparities in the level of human development among states. "HDI is better in smaller states and Union territories."
PTI
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