FOOD SECURITY , an optical illusion or a concrete path..

Amidst all the uproar of the Lokpal in this Winter session of the Parliament, we saw the tabling of the much talked about Food security bill , which many of the reviewers criticized in terms of difficulties of implementation.

But I'm afraid I'm against the bill in principle, because of a lot of reasons, out of which the major and my burden of proof would be;
When the economic policy of the nation turns to pitying the poor rather than empowering them, the economy is bound to take a down turn.

What I mean by this is, for those who have studied economics will know, for those who have not , the basic point is people earn so that they can feed themselves and their family, by providing them such a subsidy , the government is also providing them a disincentive to work, or to empower themselves through work.
It has been a much agreed fact, that the growth of entrepreneurship in an economy is also related to the poverty level. Consider it like this , low income level (poor) people develop micro or macro entreprise to raise their well being and standard of living (of course this is not true for all individuals , the few who do it out of interest) , elimination of poverty diminishes the incentive for entrepreneurship; and provision of subsidies gives a disincentive to work This is just a comparison to outline the principle flaw in the bill.

Realizing I'm talking at extreme end, I admit there are some sections of people who can't afford to buy at the present rate of disproportionate food inflation; and I of all the people realize this , cause I am never able to forget every time there has been a child begging in front of me ,telling me he is hungry ; I say, I would have liked to agree on the bill , had it come at some other time , but coming at a time when the fiscal deficit is only growing ,and the economy already being in the downturn, the bill might do more harm than good; and then its only a short term solution to the hunger problem.

In addition, the outreach would  be imperfect because of the unavoidable corruption, and that I can say with surety because of having the privilege to talk with people working on field. Another major flaw as pointed out by critics is suppose if you are providing grains at subsidized rates to a person earning 10 rupees a day, are you going to deny it to the one earning 11 rupees a day.
This in conjunction with the policy of giving grains to other classes above BPL also at subsidized rates, dear government you are ruining the working of economy by not letting the market forces operate where the people have purchasing power; and once again to emphasize a burgeoning fiscal deficit does good to none.

Now, you might question me, that, then how do I propose to see to the well being of poor.
I, in principle have always supported economic inclusion of the poor but through financial inclusion and not by giving subsidies on long term, Subsidies have never have been, and never can be , a long term solution.
If you really care about the poor, please grant them a long term solution and do not fool or appease them for the sake of upcoming elections.
Empower them.
The good thing is atleast the principle of financial inclusion of poor (especially women) is already in place , with the concept of Microfinance, first born in 1992; but its hard to say how much of financial inclusion of poor we have been able to achieve, because like all other noble initiatives, this also falls prey to corruption in some areas save south; where other problems like commercialization by the likes of SKS MFI blemished the scenario.

What my idea is , that the government should focus on completing this movement of empowering the poor, rather than coming up with another less practical and difficult to implement scheme, just to increase its vote bank (I know that is a stupid utopian idea that crossed my mind, nevertheless).

To conclude, an observation that came across in a short discussion with my grandfather ; a consequence of the implementation of MGNREGA was reduction in the supply of agricultural labour, because in case of NREGA , most of the workers would go for merely 2 hours work to mark their presence , while the agriculture labour demanded more and paid less. Obviously most of the people chose to work less and earn more through NREGA,  which led to small farmers not having enough labour, because they can't pay more than the government
And I can't doubt government's intent on NREGA; but the crux is consequence of subsidies on a long term has never been tangible.
The failure of the scheme has only made more prominent the fact that subsidies and short cuts are not the best solution and only decrease the size of national corpus.
Hoping that the government realizes this and comes up with more concrete and long term solutions, with the strong team of economists that they have, I henceforth conclude.

                     

                        Developing , are we..?

It definitely feels good to know that your country is one of the most developing nations, the world singing glories of your leaps in technology, increased HR index, rising social ventures etc. ,

But when I look at the complete picture I wonder, can u really call this all complete development, and for that matter can u call India a developing nation.

Or is like everything else the definition of economic development also glamorized…?

Of course in Maths when you talk about a limit to exist , it must exist from all directions at that point, and for development to exist, it must be multi dimensional, but I’m afraid that’s not quite the scene regarding India’s development presently.

Whenever we talk of India’s development, I’m afraid all of us including me think of the burgeoning IT sector , the boom in real state, the promising banking sector, new metros in Delhi etc. , but do we ever talk about what have been the development in agricultural sector , if I’m right that is one segment that has been static since the green revolution, or do we think how much we have been able to eradicate child labour or reduced the amount of beggars on streets, or reduced human trafikking for that matter, and tho I’m not a feminist, still can today women live without fear in the society.

Though it feels good, and in fact I’m proud of the development that has taken place in urban India , in that matter my own home town Lucknow which looks nothing less than a US city at some places, but I js wish I could say the same for our villages. There’s an entirely different way to handle rural economy and the present progress and contribution to the same is highly disappointing.

What disturbs me more is that the definition of development or rather economic development is indeed glamorized. We say a city or a country is getting developed, if it has more malls or multiplexes or neon street lights than before. But will anyone try to tell me what about the villages, which give shelter to an overwhelmingly large amount of Indian population.

And somebody has to explain to me , why on earth literacy rate in any country should be anything but less than 100%, why shouldn’t a child get an opportunity to learn about the world around him and decide for himself. Are we really living in a society of equal opportunities…..? Is the government even trying to shape into existence what we call a welfare state(our constitutional aim) if not of equal status but of equal opportunity.

Now someone might probably say, the answer to the problem of equal opportunity is reservations, but I’ll say “Come on give me a break, are you really blind enough to see that its apparently of no positive consequences atleast in today’s world, I’ll agree it was very much required when our country got independent, but with the gay rights being legalized I’m not sure we continue to be a conservative country still, but that ofcourse doesn’t mean we are Americanized.

But what I mean to say is, thanks to our lazy politicians, who’d do anything but work for the country, some very necessary modifications in the political and legal system have not been made.

{At least for that matter I find INC much more sensible than BJP. I mean at times I imagine BJP and RSS having a conversation during evening tea “Yaar, party me kuch karne ko nahi hai , bor ho rahe hain baithe-baithe” Another party worker: “Haan yaar sahi keh rahe ho, aisa karte hain Babri masjid gira aate hain, mazaa aaega.” Didn’t they have nething better to do…?? ; but then they were more interested in creating political unrest rather than catering to what people actually needed. }

Besides reservation just serve the purpose for those who have the access to education, what about those who don’t..??

Its time when we start focusing on solutions rather than problems.

The politicians just wanna use the existing laws and policies to make their own ends meet. 

Even if you say reservations are fine, and that issue is undebatable, they serve the purpose only to those who can manage to reach upto the level of giving entrance and job examinations, but what about those who have been denied the opportunity to education simply because they are poor.

When will the government ever realize that changes and positive changes happen only by transforming things at root level, but The sorrow of the day is nobody is quite ready to take up the responsibility.

(Even in our EDS class presenters going for ventures on rural transformation are discouraged by saying that it wont work )

And I’m afraid policies like NREGA won’t help until government creates concrete employment opportunities for rural people, and trust me with a overwhelmingly large rural population you can not even imagine reaching the level of a developed nation unless you transform the rural economy.

 Though service sector is  by far the largest, manufacturing has recently grown, but the growth of agricultural sector is still the least.

I don’t expect the government to give it more importance than manufacturing  and services, but there’s at least a need to organize it ,  the direct consequence of an unorganized agricultural sector is the unregulated food prices and week supply chain. But what really is my concern is that because of the glamorization of the urbanization, people are not much interested in farming anymore, selling off the land gives much more than selling crops grown on it, farming is considered as the most risky business these days, and the sons and grandsons of farmers want to run to cities. In such a situation proper education and awareness is called for. Here of course I’m not saying that a ruralite may not be allowed to go to city and study , and be forced to practise farming, but there is a need to maintain a balance.

Whats most important right now, atleast if the government claims India is a democracy, is the implementation and not just talk of inclusive growth.

The long and short of  what I wanted to convey is, its high time we start developing like India and on our strengths, and focus on our local needs apart from enhancing our global strengths and growing international recognition; and I’m sure that then no external factor will be able to shake India’s development and economy.