POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY TN
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2.6 Summary<br />
In summary the following points may be highlighted:<br />
1. Growth is one of the strongest antidotes to poverty. Redistribution policies can<br />
strengthen the poverty reducing impact of growth by correcting market failures<br />
specially the imperfections of the credit and insurance markets.<br />
2. Initial conditions including the asset bases are critical in enhancing the povertyreducing<br />
impact of growth.<br />
3. Economic and employment growth are important for achieving self-sustaining<br />
poverty reduction, whereas specific programmes for poverty reduction take the<br />
poor only marginally above the poverty line, keeping them highly vulnerable to<br />
shocks including inflation shocks.<br />
4. The sectoral composition of growth is also critical. In Tamil Nadu, as in India as a<br />
whole, the structure of the economy is shifting away from agriculture. For people<br />
remaining in agriculture the real growth is likely to be relatively low compared to<br />
the other sectors. The agricultural prices will also remain more volatile. These<br />
trends will lead to strengthening of migration trends in Tamil Nadu away from<br />
agriculture to non-agricultural activities and away from rural to urban areas.<br />
5. Growth in employment in the primary sector in Tamil Nadu has been negative<br />
whereas that in secondary and tertiary sector has been positive and large.<br />
6. The basic challenge in the context of the changing structure of the economy and<br />
employment is to create the capacity to absorb the migrating population out of<br />
agriculture into industry and services with proper training and skill development.<br />
At the same time, productivity in agriculture should not be allowed to fall. This<br />
will require considerable additional investment in agriculture where government<br />
will have to play a key role as the returns will not be adequate to attract large<br />
inflows of private capital into agriculture.<br />
7. Higher growth, particularly in non-agriculture has been shown to have a<br />
significant direct impact on reducing poverty in Tamil Nadu.<br />
In the next Chapter we look at the need and scope for fiscal reforms so as to<br />
strengthen growth and broad based poverty reduction strategy emphasizing human<br />
development. These changes are interdependent: expenditure on education and health<br />
accommodates absorption of labour in the non-agriculture sectors. These enable<br />
aggregate growth to pick up, generating additional revenues for the government to take<br />
the required expenditures on health and education. Further, fiscal space is created for<br />
undertaking additional investment in infrastructure.<br />
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