DEVELOPMENT
What Development Promises-Different People, Different Goals
People seek things that are most important for them, i.e., which can fulfill their
aspirations or desires. So two things are quite clear:
• Different persons can have different developmental goals.
• What may be development for one may not be development for the other. It may
even be destructive for the other.
Income and Other Goals
• People prefer to regular work, better wages and decent price for their crops or
other products that they produce.
• But people also seek things like equal treatment, freedom, security, and respect of
others. Similarly, for development, people look at a mix of goals.
National Development
• National development means thinking about fair and just path for all, whether
there is a better way of doing things.
• Standard of living of citizens depends upon per capita income, gross domestic
product, literacy rate, availability of health facilities etc.
How to Compare Different Countries or States?
• We can compare different countries or states on the basis of per capita income.
• We cannot take national income to compare different countries because each
country has different population rate.
• Per capita income is calculated by dividing total income of a country to total
population of that particular country.
Income and Other Criteria
• For comparison only per capita Income is not sufficient, some other criteria also
included like GDP, IMR, literacy rate, life expectancy rate etc.
• Literacy rate is the proportion of literate population in the 7 and above age group.
• Life expectancy is the maximum age up-to which a person lives.
• IMR is the number of children die before completing one year out of 1000 live
children born in a specific year
Public Facilities
• Public facilities are essential facilities that need to be provided to everyone by the
Government. Some of the examples of essential public facilities are healthcare,
sanitation facilities, educational institutions, public transport, electricity etc.
• Human Development Report published by UNDP compares countries based on the
educational levels of the people, their health status and per capita income.
Sustainability of Development
• Sustainable development is development that meets the needs. of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• It involves finding ways for continuous development without the risk of running
out of resources or causing irreparable damage to environment.
Sustainability of development would involve:
(i) More efficient use of our existing resources.
(ii) Preserving regenerative capacity of ecological system