For Gates Foundation, it's to help India but also learn from India: Bill Gates
Alongside the launch of the Gates Foundation Goalkeepers Report 2024, Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Bill Gates tells ET that he hopes India will be able to graduate from the public distribution system and rely instead on raised incomes over the next decades. Edited excerpts:
The latest Goalkeepers Report focuses strongly on malnutrition. What is your view on India’s policy interventions such as free cereals given through the public distribution system?
There is no doubt that the poorer you are, the higher is food as a percentage of your budget. And so, the idea that governments, either by incentivising the private sector or through various subsidisation, keep food costs fairly low- particularly for the urban poor, and yet they have to be careful not to hurt the farmers. The balancing act, India does manage largely. In the US, we have graduated from needing to have this type of food distribution. We have a thing called ‘food stamps’, where you get money, and you can only use it to buy food.
At some point — it could be more than a decade — hopefully, you can graduate from having to have a public distribution system and just rely on the fact that you have raised incomes and educated consumers.
Right now, this inexpensive cereal is clearly helping consumers. And if it does save them money, they need to be educated not to buy more cereals with the money saved, but to buy vegetables and things that include proteins.
Are there specific policy interventions that you consider necessary in India or have suggested
