Workers have had to go on strike for weeks just to demand enforcement of the minimum wage norms of 44 dollars a month. This situation has worsened despite an improvement in India's international image and an influx of foreign direct investment. This is rising but minuscule by world standards and compares poorly even with Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia or Vietnam. Much of this investment flows either into the energy sector where the government is offering unprecedentedly high guaranteed rates of return or into the manufacture of such products as automobiles, breakfast cereals, potato chips and cola drinks. The government has strained every nerve to draw in new FDI, but the domestic savings rate has fallen from 24.6 in 1989-90 to 20.2 per cent last year.
Agriculture too presents a rather indifferent picture.
Despite seven good monsoons in a row, India's agriculture has more or less stagnated and foodgrain availability has declined from 575 gms per head in 1990-91 to 551 gms last year. Sales from the PDS, on which sections of the poor are critically dependent have actually decreased by 20 to 30 per cent. The overall consequence is a further worsening of income inequality ratios, unlike in Southeast and East Asia where rapid growth since the early 1980s has been accompanied by declining inequalities in income. But the average daily wage for unskilled workers is 1.10 dollars or 400 dollars a year. This admission is embarrassing even for the elite which, a recent opinion poll reveals, likes the NEP, but believes that much more needs to be done for the poor.