In August 2007, Dr Arjun Sengupta's report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihood in the Unorganised Sector, which claimed that 836 million Indians are living on Rs 20 or less per day, up shook the nation.
As chairman of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, a government affiliated body, he sifted through a mountain of 15 years of data and found that liberalisation and economic reforms had percolated down to only to 23 per cent of the population, and over 836 million Indians -- consisting of Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, and Muslims -- have remained very poor.
Sengupta's papers on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty have been widely circulated. In the 1980s, he was Economic Advisor to the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
He later moved to the International Monetary Fund as an executive director. He was also India's Ambassador to the European Union. He headed the economic cell of Congress party along with Dr Manmohan Singh before the United Progressive Alliance government was formed.
rediff.com asked him about his view on the rising inflation and oil prices, and the UPA government's economy management. Read on. . .
Text: Sheela Bhatt in New Delhi
Image: (Left) K K Modi, chairman, Modi, Enterprises & past president, FICCI with Dr Arjun Sengupta, chairman, National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector. | Photograph, courtesy: FICCI
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