India - Maharashtra : Reorienting Government to Facilitate Growth and Reduce Poverty, Volume 2. Statistical Appendix, Other Annexes, and Workshop Programs
Maharashtra's leadership position in India is under threat. The State is facing several bottlenecks to development: the private sector is no longer embracing Maharashtra and the public sector banks are increasingly reluctant to assist Maharash...
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/10/2159855/india-maharashtra-reorienting-government-facilitate-growth-reduce-poverty-vol-2-2-statistical-appendix-other-annexes-workshop-programs http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15301 |
| Summary: | Maharashtra's leadership position
in India is under threat. The State is facing several
bottlenecks to development: the private sector is no longer
embracing Maharashtra and the public sector banks are
increasingly reluctant to assist Maharashtra in its
off-budget endeavors. Thus, the status quo is not an option.
Regaining its leadership position is well within
Maharashtra's reach. Among its many strengths are: the
large pool of literate and skilled labor force, a
well-developed financial system, a talented bureaucracy, and
willingness to break with the ways of the past. If the State
can successfully implement its reform agenda, it can quickly
rebound and be back on the path of growth and prosperity.
The lessons of the past decade suggest two guiding
principles: First, the Government needs to articulate the
message that its reforms are not to hurt, but to help the
farmers. If reforms are to succeed, they have to be
pro-farmer and pro-poor. Maharashtra's fiscal stress,
be it due to power and irrigation subsidies or due to the
losses in cotton and sugar interventions, has a close
connection with the rural sector. However, as analyzed in
Chapter 4, the current rural interventions are imposing a
huge and unsustainable fiscal cost on the state, and more
importantly, the bulk of the benefits are accruing to the
rural rich. the challenge for the government, therefore, is
to provide more efficient, equitable, and sustainable
assistance to the rural poor. Second, the government's
reform program needs to be designed and implemented with a
medium- to long-term perspective. Piecemeal, short-term
reforms can only bring short-term gains. The Government of
Maharashtra faces a simple choice: to try to succeed in a
difficult reform endeavor, or, since the policies of the
past no longer work, to give up without trying and condemn
itself to developmental and fiscal failure. Through its
2002-03 Budget Speech, the Government has indicated that it
has chosen the former path. The quicker it moves along it,
the greater the chances of success. |
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