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India moves to spread wealth
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Aug 26, 2005 07:17pm |
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| Category | General |
| News Date | Friday, August 26, 2005 01:15:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | India passed its most ambitious antipoverty program in decades Tuesday in an effort to spread more widely the spoils of the country's rapid economic growth.
Social welfare spending, it seems, is staging a comeback here, after 15 years of focus on privatization and encouraging the high-tech sector. Presenting the bill in parliament, Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi said, "An economy growing at 7 percent per year, can and must find the resources ... to improve the lives of its millions of poor."
Much of rural India, home to two-thirds of the population, has not felt the benefits of the new high-tech economy, and voters in these areas handed the reins of power to the Congress Party in a stunning election upset last year.
Under the new legislation, rural poor are guaranteed 100 days of work per household every year. One-third of these jobs will be reserved for women. The mammoth program, which will be implemented in the 150 poorest districts over the next four years, comes with a whopping price tag of $9 billion a year. |
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