A false GDP and a false economic growth rate, may be high and impressive to both the misleading and the misled, but it would leave the law-makers and the sufferers without any solution as long as they confine themselves to the world of illusion.
A country's true development cannot be reflected in the existing method of calculating the GDP. The method has been conventional for a long time. It gives an overall picture. The plight of the majority of the population, gets diluted in the process. As such, the economic condition of the lowest and the middle rungs of the social ladder, is put on the back-burner. The immense relief that the soaring GDP gives to the leaders and the privileged, impedes even a genuine government, from throwing a few glances to the grinding poverty, that keeps pulling down the social justice. However, the issues develop wings when the politicians use the same for political stunts. It is fairly used for deceiving the voters.
In countries, where the majority of the citizens are the victims of ignorance, the work of the politicians become easy in luring them with false promises. Once, they are voted to power, the desperate voters are remembered only at the time of the next elections because the voter holds democratic significance.
What makes matters worse, is the fact that many literate citizens, who call themselves the victims of hectic schedule, heed little to the political inconsistencies and the delinquency of the leaders. It is this inability of the voters, that adds to the strength of the several rungs of the political ladder.
The existing conventional GDP has a lion's share of the uppermost rungs of the economic ladder, which forms the smallest section of the society. It is the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, that has the biggest part of the population, and if the GDP of this part of the population, in a nation, is calculated, it would shock the leaders. Further, when the middle rungs are added to the lowest rungs, the declination would be sharper. For a long time, it is the middle rungs too, which have been given little notice.
But, this disappointing truth would bring a stable and sustainable growth. The growth may be slow but it would ensure the true prosperity of a nation.
Moreover, this would enable the upper rungs of the ladder to extend a helping hand to the lowest rungs who are deprived of their bread and butter, and to those who fail in making their both ends meet. It is time the system underwent changes to pave the path to a two-pronged approach, which gives scope for calculating GDP of the higher rungs and lower rungs separately. Subsequently, each year, the GDP of a nation would give the difference between the two points - the low potential and the high potential. In fact, this would not only reduce the gap between the rich and the poor but also ensure the right distribution of the national wealth among all the rungs.
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