Growth with social dev is the key to sustainable dev: Rangarajan

Jaipur, Mar 21 (UNI) Renowned economist and chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister Dr C Rangarajan has said accelerating growth rate with emphasis on social development is the key to sustainbale development.

''It is important that only a faster growth will enable the economy to generate surpluses necessary to fulfill the socio economic goals and this will inturn make the growth more inclusive at the next stage. We would have then set in motion a virtuous cycle of growth and inclusion,'' Dr Rangarajan said in his inaugural address at a national seminar on 'Making Economic Growth Inclusive: With reference to human development' here today.

''We need a three-pronged approach comprising of a higher economic growth rate, higher proportion of expenditure particularly in social sectors and an efficient utilisation of funds allotted to achieve higher levels of human development in the country,'' Mr Ranjarajan said.

He said even as the government raises the level of expenditure in the fields of health and education, sufficient attention needs to be paid as to how effective these expenditures are.

''We need to experiment with new innovative arrangements for improving the quality of services in these fields.'' He suggested public-private participation without compromising the social objectives. Greater attention needs to be paid on improving the institutional and administrative frame work associated with the delivery of public servcies.

Quoting a recently published nation wide survey of citizen access, use and satisfaction with public services, he said there exist a wide gap between the access created by investment asset creation and citizens satisfaction with quality and reliability of services.

UNI