Whither Growth and Development ~ which sectors ~ where do we head for !

There are quite a few euphemisms……. One is the term ‘developing Country’.  Often one gets confused on what is growth and development ……… and what are areas or parameters that would gauge such growth of the Nation.

Often people reel out statistics, you stress their points ~ and they look quite formidable and dumb founding too.  Can you imagine that half a century ago, licence was required for keeping even radios and that radios were using DC [direct current] ~ in the mid 70s came Black & White TVs – Dyanora, Telerama  and Solidaire brands ……… by the end 80s or early 90s, people started buying colour Televisions, with remote controls ~ yes remote control was a novel feature at that time and before that people would manually change channels………… imagine doing that or ask your children to do that at least once a day !!

In the age of LCD, LED and Plasma TVs providing high definitive images, it is reported that there are over  13,000 British householders still have black and white sets; yes black & white television sets……… in an era where the Govt. provided colour television sets free to all ration card holders in Tamil Nadu !!!  There perhaps is still the licensing system and acccording to television and radio technology, though it might be a small % there are still  13,202 monochrome licence.

Now getting back to our Mother India, many parts of the Nation are under acute water crisis, access to potable water is much less but mobile telephony is growing phenomenally.  Goa grows most in vehicle per household,  Tripura scores in banking services;  Tamil Nadu registers highest growth in TV ownership.

From an analysis in  the Business Standard, in states like Madhya Pradesh drinking water access is actually worse of  by -0.7%.  In the same parameter, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Goa are the most improved with access to drinking water rising by 22.9, 22 and 18%.  Goa grows most in vehicle per household Tripura scores in banking services Tamil Nadu registers highest growth in TV ownership.  Tripura doesn’t often make national headlines. But tucked away in one corner of India’s northeast, the state has delivered where others have failed. Tripura tops the maximum change in households availing banking services (52.7 percentage points) and the second highest growth in households using electricity as the primary source of lighting (26.6 percentage points). Goa has seen more households with four-wheelers and two-wheelers than any other state. That apart, much of the remaining action in the four-wheeler segment has come from Chandigarh, the National Capital Region of Delhi and Punjab. In sharp contrast, West Bengal, once the proposed home of the Tata Nano, has shown the worst growth in four-wheeler penetration over the last 10 years

The no. of mobile users would keep going, so also the roaring sales of mobile handsets ~ people will select their own plans and keep talking at home, on road, in office, in theatres, in places of worship, in hospitals and everywhere, unmindful of anything else.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

12^th Jan 2013.