Growth with social justice: sweet slumber or big leap?

Abstract

V S VYAS and Pradeep Bhargava in their paper, 'Public Intervention tor Poverty Alleviation: An Overview' (ERW, October 14-21) have done eloquent scrvice by not only commissioning nine state-specific studies on rural poverty but also by preparing a synthesised overview based on these studies. My comment is on their conclusion that poverty can be alleviated with the intervention of target-group specific poverty alleviation programme "without spectacular economic growth". This conclusion if extended to its logical extreme suggests that a strategy of poverty alleviation is a better alternative to growth with social justice-oriented policy. While Vyas and Bhargava may not have intended this, the unintended evil may be taken as good.