Hon’ble Chair, Hon’ble Speaker First Woman Speaker of Pakistan Dr. Fehmida Mirza, Hon’ble dignitaries on the Dias, the Parliament Speakers from the various States present here and Members of the delegation.

First let me emphasis that it is such a pleasure for me to be participating here in distinguished Session which is being chaired by Hon’ble Dr. Fehmida Mirza. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the Speaker of Sri Lanka on his very warm and generous hospitality. I feel specially privileged and it is a matter of personal importance to me that I have the opportunity to set the tone for the agenda ahead.

The subject matter of the Plenary “Poverty Alleviation”, no doubt, is a subject of immense contemporary relevance. Poverty is not merely numerical, poverty is a chronic deprivation of all basic human needs. It is a tragic situation where people are left without recourse to welfare or even to the justice system. Poverty is a universal scourge. There are 1.2 billion people of the world, approximately one-fifth of the entire world population who live in extreme poverty and most of them live in Asia and Africa, as Madame Chair has just pointed out from the report South Asia has maximum people living below the poverty line.

This is the biggest developmental challenge that the world is facing today and it is a matter of satisfaction that there is unanimity among all the people that we should work really hard towards poverty alleviation amidst us. Poverty has many faces, poverty has many dimensions - illiteracy, ill health, homelessness, malnutrition, hunger, unemployment, lack of confidence, inability to take advantage of the opportunities, you name it and it is due to grinding poverty. How are we going to address these issues? That is the burning question.

First of all, we must find out what are the road blocks in our goal of achieving poverty alleviation, and then we must find out what are the strategies to remove those, to address those road blocks. Before we address the issue, we must realize that poverty varies from country to country and also within the country, from region to region. So, the policies and schemes and the programmes that we make for poverty alleviation cannot be uniform. They must suit the local needs and requirements. Secondly, as I had emphasized earlier, since poverty has many dimensions and many faces to it, correctly we find that most of the countries are focusing on poverty amelioration whereas I think the need of the hour is to focus on overall change because poverty has so many dimensions to it. And the third thing which we should realize is economic growth and poverty reduction are co-related. Now, it is fundamental to poverty reduction and poverty alleviation that we build our inclusive system of governance. Only when we have an inclusive system of governance will we be able to have equitable growth. We may have economic growth but if it is part equitable and if the fruits of economic growth are not percolating down to everybody then it is not inclusive system of governance. So there should be equitable growth then only it will mitigate poverty. And poor must be empowered. That is very important. Poor must be empowered politically. They must have a powerful political voice. Powerlessness of the poor in political realm can be both the cause and effect of poverty. This is something which we should as parliamentarians keep in mind.

As parliamentarians, we have no doubt a very crucial role to play. First of all, we should work in close cooperation with our government, with the civil society and partners of development. To ensure that the policies and programmes are properly framed, resources are adequately mobilized and channelized to the benefit of the poor. This is I think our primary duty as parliamentarians. And then, we should also make it categorically clear to everybody that the more the democracy, the more the accountability, the more the attack on poverty. The more the system is inclusive and participatory, the more the chances of succeeding. This is the mantra, the basic philosophy, we should as parliamentarians must keep in mind.

We should be very particular about which are the people living below poverty line within our constituencies, which are the people living below poverty line within our country and what are their special problems which they face and how are we going to address that. What kind of policies should be made to address that. The government which has made these policies, are they adequate? Are they correct? Or they need to be modified? With all this information we should go to the Floor of the House and discuss it. This is a very effective way of presenting to the country the problems of the people. It will also raise the confidence of the poor people because they are so heavily discriminated against. They feel very humiliated and there is a lack of confidence. I think if we discuss their issues on the Floor of the House and it is given so much importance it will be a confidence building exercise, they will be in a better position to take advantage of the policies and programmes which are formulated for them.

Then, as parliamentarians, I feel we should also assist those NGOs and people in our constituency or otherwise, in our country or anywhere whom we find are genuinely working for the poor we should be in a position as parliamentarians to assist them. And when we should also see there are so many government projects which are being implemented for the poor. We should see that the poor are not deprived of their share in it, which mostly happens. They don’t come to know these programmes are for them or what is their share in it. They don’t come to know of it. We should ensure that they are not deprived of it. And then corruption. We should combat it.

We should combat corruption at all levels as parliamentarians. If the corruption is coming in the way of the assistance which should be given to the poor, then we should take up the cudgel very very emphatically. We should be a kind of a bridge between the government, the private sector and the civil society to address the issue of poverty.

So far as India is concerned, that is also part of this very deliberations as to what we have done in our respective countries. In India, we have of course we have the rural poor and the urban poor. Rural poor are the small and marginal farmers, the landless agriculturists, what we call the agricultural labourers and we have the artisans. And then in the urban areas, the unemployed who are partly employed, they form the poor in India, which is a very large number. In 1973-74, the poor population was 55%, in 1993-94, it came down to 36%, and in 2004-05, it came down to 27.5%. There has been considerable decline over the years. However, these are in total terms, we have 300 million people living below poverty line. So, we have a massive work to do. And successive governments, no matter which party comes to power, they have been addressing these issues. And we have broadened the pace of it and we have made it more intense, and we have many schemes, many legislations, many programmes which have been brought into use, into effect to address this issue, mainly to create employment, to generate employment, and to also have a productive assets to impart training in technical, tactical training in entrepreneurial skills so that income level so we have a number of legislations.

The most important is our Rural Employment Guarantee Act that we have made which gives guaranteed employment to the rural poor ….. in a financial year. Then we have health missions, rural health missions. We have women and children are mostly the worst affected amongst the poor. So far the empowerment of women we have a national policy in our Panchayati Raj, we have made an Act where women are given 33% reservation so that they feel empowered in the local civil parties and we have the health mission we have given for children we have made the 86th Amendment in our Constitution to give Right to Education to children it becomes their Fundamental Right. And then we have gender budgeting for women and for children we have many schemes for their education, for their training, and then also we have also the Right to Information.

The Right to Information Act is a very effective weapon to remove corruption and also the government or the parliament goes to election at that time we are accountable to the people. But through the Right to Information Act, the government and the parliament is accountable to the people every day. So the questions are coming every day. So this very revolutionary forward looking pieces of legislation have been the need so that we can address the issue of poverty.

Before I end, I just want to say that Mahatma Gandhi had said that wipe every tear from every eye. And he had said that whenever you are in doubt, whether you are taking the right step or not, think of the poorest, the humblest amongst you think whether the action you are going to take will affect his life and improve his life or not. So that is the litmus test the parliamentarians have and I think even today it is valid.