The Five Kilometre and Self Family Method: A Citizen's Way to Measure Real Development in India
Every nation measures its own progress. India measures progress through the Five Year Plans of the past, through NITI Aayog reports today, through NSSO and PLFS surveys, and through the Economic Survey tabled each year in Parliament. These documents are useful. They give scale. They give a national picture. But they are prepared far from the village. They are read by very few citizens. Most people never open an Economic Survey. Most people never read an NSSO table. This article argues for a simpler method. It asks every citizen to become their own surveyor. It asks a person to count their own family members. It asks a person to walk five kilometres in four directions from their home and look at what stands there. This is not a replacement for official data. It is a companion to it. It brings the debate about development back to where development is supposed to happen, which is the home and the neighbourhood. The idea grows out of a larger worry. Since independence, India promised plann...