Business to the Buddha

Tag: MNREGA

  • Government’s “job”







    As usual Monday morning, my milkman – Ramlal – rang the doorbell. I opened the door, with his endless smile he poured milk in my container and returned it to me. I know he is an old man from Uttar Pradesh – a state in India, he had gone to his village for sowing in his farm in the fag end of summers. During this time when he was not in Mumbai, his son used to deliver milk.

    My milkman is a hardworking person. At this age he cycles about 10 km delivering milk about 25 ltr daily. He comes delivering milk from different places to my home at 6:30 AM, he starts from home at 5 AM. I asked him that day – “Ramlalji after delivering milk what to you do?” I was under an impression he drives auto or mostly remains at home as his son might be working. He said he goes to a catering place and works as cook. I thought he does that only during day, he said in the evening too he works there.

    FarmerI was surprised, was happy for him that he has some work and is keeping himself busy. However, it made me question Why do so many people migrate to Mumbai or other big cities? In fact I am too an immigrant to Mumbai its been 10+ years I am here. People migrate from UP or Bihar to Mumbai or any other big cities because in their home state they do not find suitable employment. Almost same was the case for me, even if I want to go back to MP (where my parents still live), I would not be able to find a relevant employment opportunity for myself.

    Furthermore, I asked myself, why so, cant I go back to MP? Why cant I find relevant work for myself? In my case I don’t see any such company there in MP where my skills can be utilized. Even if I consider starting my owns company I have to come to other big cities for getting work! This is about organized sector, what about Ramlal ji, my milkman? Can he not go back to his village? He is struggling for two square meals in Mumbai. It is so expensive a place e.g you can buy bottle gourd in INR 10 per kg (Indore – by population 14th biggest city of India), we pay as much as INR 60 in Mumbai (prices of July 2016); prices must be far less in a village. Not just my milkman, I have spoken with various auto/taxi drivers in Mumbai, they say the same – if I get work in my hometown, why would I leave everything? Some had told me their monthly financials too – they save as much  as INR 3000 a month.

    While I was ruminating about these things I asked myself where is the problem? Let us say there is Charm in Mumbai – city of dreams – so many people migrate here. But is it the only reason? Not all come to Mumbai to be another Amitabh Bachchan! Why would a villager who can save only INR 3000 a month want to come here, where he has to living in a 10X10 square feet room with 5 to 8 other people in almost a slum? Many come here because they do not have any work to do in their village. So, what is the role of Government? Well, we can talk at length about Government; in India Govt has 3 basic building blocks – Judiciary, legislators and administrator and so on. I was thinking to concentrate on only one thing when I looked at the situation of Ramlal ji. Point is, even after living in such conditions, spending about 10X extra on food only, they save 3000 which is far better than being in village. Means there in the village or nearby area there is not employment opportunity that can fetch them better returns / savings!

    The job of Govt also include creating job opportunities, isnt it? Well, those who think of capitalism may argue entrepreneurship is a solution. Well, after 2008 US Govt has also been looking at a key metric to consider many policy decisions – the unemployment rate. It has become as important or perhaps more important than rate of inflation in the US, isnt it? India is a developing nation, the State and Union Govt has a big responsibility to create job opportunities – mind it, we do not need NREGA (employment Guarantee Scheme). Reasons – a recent case here (you can find many if you search on net) another reason is – our citizen do not necessarily need to just dig holes there may be many people who are educated and need other suitable opportunity to work, isnt it?

    The least State Govts can do is – creating employment opportunities in their states, be it UP, Bihar, MP or any other state. How long Ramlal ji (or Aarti Amma) will keep on shuffling between village and Mumbai to just earn two square meals & saving a few thousand rupee?

  • Keynes







    I enjoyed learning economics in my MBA, thanks to Prof Mankad for teaching Macroeconomics as a well narrated story of History of the world. He taught it so brilliantly that we all used to sit, go through the roller coasters up and down the history lane by-lanes and learn the development in economics and policy making.

    Being an average engineer, I too was unaware (still am) about economics before taking the course with Prof Mankad. This was the class where I came to know about John Manyard Keynes and keynesianism. I buy into his theory of Govt intervention (which wont go down well with many capitalists); however the way I have seen recent past is – challenges and largely corruption in implementation. In India, Govt has launched Food Security, Employment schemes – seems good as Keynes suggested, but the money is not reaching the right place.

    Well, I thought to write on Keynes because something moved me deeply in Prof Mankad’s class. That statement itched profoundly, whenever I thought about future that sentence resounded. Prof Mankad talked about Great Depression in his lectures. He introduced us to the Keynes and his idea, opposition to his idea and so on. In the lecture Prof Mankad said – what Keynes was – “in the long run we are all dead”.

    This statement is right however we can think on this two ways –

    1. (bad one) Anyway I will die one day – why worry, indulge and enjoy. [may be Tarun Tejpal (recent Tehelka sexual harassment case) and many others think this way]

    2. (Good intentions) Yes, if I am going to die, everyone dies, so what is the purpose of my being here? Am I like any other animal or plant, or I have some brain, who gave it to me? And so on…

    So, if …in the long run we are all dead… why all this drama (delusion)? in Hindi – यह प्रपंच क्यों?

  • Inclusive growth







    We’ve seen that socialism had it’s problem, capitalism is no less culprit. I’ve been thinking about both together and have written about it. Regularly I asked this questions of how to two of my MBA professors – Prof Harkant Mankad and Prof Arun Ramanathan. Prof Ramanathan suggested me to read functioning of Nordic countries – heavy tax but less social security. Once I shared this logic –

    Socialism & CapitalismIf we look at both simultaneously we see some good and some not so good practices. Socialism had social benefit at center but execution sucked. On the other hand capitalism has profit at center and execution is better, and also capitalism largely never considered social good as one of the concerns.

    The very bird-eye-view (yes MBAs use this kind of jargon) solution could be – What is we bring social benefit and profit together at center and use execution efficiencies of capitalism around? The profit does not necessarily become – extracting whatever available consumer surplus is there with consumer. Take an example of social entrepreneurship, that is one good approach. Here, I do not intend to say every business should be like that. Also, yesterday I tweeted and updated on LinkedIn – If you want to be social entrepreneur, remember funder of social enterprise has impact in mind+heart & investing in head, so impact weighs higher! those kind of initiative can help in inclusive growth.

    I see that PPP – Public Private Partnership – can also be great boon for inclusive growth. However, greed has created more problem in the Indian context than giving us Inclusive Growth.

    Take an example of MNREGA, it has been failing, benefits are not reaching where they should. How can political parties be kept away from execution? Politicians asking for bribe in such cases is nothing but extortion. How about giving the executioner tax benefits to get involved in it and ask for accountability? Audit Done periodically by people (an independent body monitoring). The people affected and benefited can vote for continuation or stopping that company from involvement. So this can be kind of election on performance of NREGA.

    What I think is – people want a respectable life and not bread thrown at them condescendingly. Inclusive growth is possible when we think more like a combination of socialistic -capitalistic society.

    This way we’d be capitalist but in a socialist manner where besides profit, social uplifting would be a core of philosophy and growth.