Revision summary
Intra-generational equity is fairness among people alive now; it is the core of inclusive growth. Inter-generational equity is fairness toward the unborn; it is the core of sustainable development. Jobless or unequal booms fail the first test even when GDP rises. Aquifer mining, carbon lock-in, and weak environmental clearance fail the second. Policy must raise present capability without running down the ecological and fiscal stock.
Model answer
Introduction
Inclusive growth asks who shares today’s income. Sustainable development asks whether tomorrow’s people still have forests, aquifers, and a liveable climate. Intra-generational equity is fairness among those alive now. Inter-generational equity is fairness between present and future. The two must travel together; growth that lifts a few today by exhausting the commons fails both tests.
Body
Intra-generational equity and inclusive growth
- Intra-generational equity is the claim of the poor, women, Adivasis, persons with disability, and lagging districts to jobs, assets, public services, and voice in the same generation.
- Inclusive growth is not only a high GDP rate. It is growth whose employment elasticity, real wages, and access to health, education, and credit reach those groups.
- India’s live issues are a large informal workforce, regional divergence, and asset inequality. Schemes such as MGNREGA, NFSA, Ayushman Bharat, JAM, and DBT are intra-generational tools when they actually reach the last household.
- If a boom is capital-deep and job-thin, the generation is growing on paper while a majority is excluded — that is an intra-generational failure even with a rising headline.
Inter-generational equity and sustainable development
- Inter-generational equity, in the Brundtland sense, is meeting present needs without stripping the resource base of those not yet born.
- Climate stock, groundwater, soil carbon, biodiversity, and fiscal debt are the ledgers the next cohort inherits. Mining a aquifer for this year’s paddy, or locking in coal without a transition, taxes the future.
- SDGs, the Paris temperature goal, and India’s NDCs are inter-generational promises. They constrain how inclusive growth may use energy and land.
- Weak EIA practice, untreated rivers, and stubble-plus-smog in the north-west are present consumption that the next urban child pays as disease.
How the two perspectives lock
- A coal plant may hire local labour (intra-generational gain) and dump a century of carbon and ash (inter-generational loss). A solar park with land consent and local jobs can serve both.
- Green growth is inclusive only if the poor are not asked to bear conservation without livelihood, and the rich are not allowed to pollute first and compensate never.
- Public investment in human capital and ecological restoration is the rare outlay that raises both present capability and future stock.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD IG[Inclusive growth] --> INTRA[Intra-generational equity] SD[Sustainable development] --> INTER[Inter-generational equity] INTRA --> J[Jobs services voice now] INTER --> F[Climate water soil later] J --> B[Both required] F --> B
Conclusion
Intra-generational equity is inclusive sharing of today’s growth. Inter-generational equity is leaving water, climate, and fiscal room for those after us. Sustainable development is the rule that one must not be bought by sacrificing the other.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Define potential GDP and explain its determinants. What are the factors that have been inhibiting India from realizing its potential GDP?
Next question in the 2020 paper (Q2). View answer →
-
Can we grow first and clean later?
That path exported costs onto the next cohort and onto today’s pollution-exposed poor. Inclusive growth that is not green fails both equities.
-
Is inter-generational equity only about climate?
No. Groundwater, soil, biodiversity, public debt, and skills stocks are the same problem: what we leave on the books.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2025 · Q1 · GS III · 10 marks
Distinguish between the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) with special reference to India. Why is the IHDI considered a better indicator of inclusive growth? -
2024 · Q1 · GS III · 10 marks
Examine the pattern and trend of public expenditure on Social Services in the post-reforms period in India. To what extent this has been in consonance with achieving the objective of inclusive growth?( ). -
2022 · Q2 · GS III · 10 marks
Is inclusive growth possible under market economy ? State the significance of financial inclusion in achieving economic growth in India. -
2019 · Q11 · GS III · 15 marks
It is argued that the strategy of inclusive growth is intended to meet the objectives of inclusiveness and sustainability together. Comment on this statement. -
2017 · Q13 · GS III · 15 marks
What are the salient features of 'inclusive growth'? Has India been experiencing such a growth process? Analyze and suggest measures for inclusive growth. -
2016 · Q6 · GS III · 12 marks
Comment on the challenges for inclusive growth which include careless and useless manpower in the Indian context. Suggest measures to be taken for facing these challenges.
More from this paper
Q2 · UPSC Mains 2020 · GS III · 10 marks
Define potential GDP and explain its determinants. What are the factors that have been inhibiting India from realizing its potential GDP?
Indian Economy
Potential GDP is sustainable full-capacity output, not the latest quarterly print. Determinants are labour, capital stock, TFP, infrastructure, and macro stability. India wastes potential through low female participation, logistics gaps, and factor-market frictions. Bank and corporate stress, weak learning, and informality hold productivity down. Demand shocks open an output gap; scarring can also lower the ceiling itself.
Q3 · UPSC Mains 2020 · GS III · 10 marks
What are the main constraints in transport and marketing of agricultural produce in India?
Indian Economy
Village roads and a thin cold-chain waste perishable produce before it is sold. Small loads and truck dependence keep agri freight costly. APMC concentration, weak assaying, and poor price information squeeze the seller. Distress harvest sales and thin warehouse-receipt credit force low prices. MSP procurement is not a marketing system for most crops and States.
Q4 · UPSC Mains 2020 · GS III · 10 marks
What are the challenges and opportunities of food processing sector in the country? How can income of the farmers be substantially increased by encouraging food processing?
Crops, Irrigation and Marketing
India grows plenty but processes little, so glut and waste sit beside packaged-food demand. Opportunities are jobs, exports, and seasonal smoothing through parks and PLI-type support. Challenges are cold-chain, FSSAI capacity, MSME credit, and weak farm–plant links. Farmer income rises when offtake contracts, grading, and FPO ownership capture processing margins. A plant that buys cheap imports does not transform the local farmer.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.