by Karl Marx (editor's biased inclusion)
This is the concluding part of the three part series
Poverty and unemployment
Providing employment has been the only approach but it has not been fruitful for regular income, as mostly all profession depends on demand and necessity to thrive, unlike government which has been considered most stable employment sector in Indian scenario.
Some radical suggestions are:
Brand political organizations in the employment sector and all the funds and transaction be very much accountable as every other organization is in the country. All the people working with political parties are pseudo-employed. Its recognition in the employment sector would actually be beneficial for the country except for the political leaders who have wrongly utilised the organization as agency of money laundering. This would help in change the political operation of the nation which has its role in every section and sector of the country.
The political veins touch the corners of the country. So any change here would definitely affect all. If there has to be any reform in democratic principles, then this is the one.
Entrepreneurial opportunity needs other mandatory assistance like, finance, infrastructure, structural assistance and customers. Any new idea to operate in the market individually has to fight every day to survive. Existence of big corporates somewhere acts as hindrance for the individual innovators. Hence, either the idea never comes to reality or is sold for petty amount to big corporates.
Although presently India Inc has shown some light by providing investors to innovators through the help of media e.g. Economic Times IDEAS event. There still exists a lot to be done. The micro-finance project was an innovation of thought some time back and presently has inspired many entrepreneurs to operate with the idea.
The major problem is that our system sees every innovation through the eyes of qualification, e.g. a daily wage labor cannot innovate some idea for high fuel efficiency in engines because he is not qualified or educated. Such practices have discouraged many ideas, which have the potential to change, to disappear in dust. Such idea born out of necessity and it is a fact that poor sections do realize the way out themselves. They just need guidance, mentoring and certain financial help. It would be best approach for fighting poverty as affected find a way out rather than work on what government decides for all. As the reason of being poor is unique to all but factors leading to poverty are similar.
The Urban Poverty
This poverty is the outcome of disparity in development. Migration in the name of opportunity and hope of better life has been the pull factor for coming to urban areas. Now to reverse this is nearly impossible, till the time the migrant feels he has better opportunity back home.
Kids begging in the signal, trying to sell some cheap Chinese goods, doing some acrobats for living and residing as Slum dwellers is seen in every major city. Even beggars all around the city has become an identity of urban India. Some feel very pity and contribute and some other just ignore. A common feeling among all those who ignore is, all of them cash on sympathy and have adopted begging as profession. They all work very professionally in the area given to them and never venture to others area. It is as if they are all salaried for performing the act of begging. This seems to be quite true as during commonwealth games Delhi saw absence of all the beggars from the streets and now they all are back.
What can be the solution for them who rely on only opportunity to cash in, for living, they cannot be termed poor due to non availability but due to their own will. There has been some great governmental effort like VAMBAY, for street poor but from the reports it has been seen that the beneficiary rent out the houses they are provided by government, sell the ration provided to them. Now too really deal with them has remained a challenge for all. Education and opportunity across cities could provide them some new visions to actually uplift there way of living and be self dependent than cash on “Poverty affected tag”.
Government’s seriousness
Diagnostic analyses have revealed that successes of development interventions largely are depended upon active and meaningful participation of the people and their institutions in decision making. Learning from such lessons from experience, the last decade has seen a number of development initiatives with varied thrust on community participation and empowerment, decentralized decision-making, transparency and an active role of the PRIs and local bodies in their planning and execution. The district poverty initiatives project (DPIP) being implemented in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan is a poverty alleviation program designed to empower people for self development so that the poor create and manage their own development opportunities. The DPIP targets socially and economically disadvantaged groups, particularly:
· The SC/ST households;
· Households migrating out for wage employment;
· Households without proper shelters/ dwellings;
· Women and women headed households;
Government has adopted many strategies to fight poverty which are commendable the only requirement is now of designing the action locally involving local participation. There is a common sensitization among every citizen about poverty. It is just that citizen wait government to act as they have elected it and government actually cannot achieve anything without a collective effort.
Divide that has emerged because of economic, social, cultural, technological disparity can be reduced if not disappeared. Education, Right Mentoring, Encouragement and collective efforts are some basic requirement to achieve it.
If all of us change the world, it will change. Positive or negative is up to us to decide.
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Abhilash Mohapatra not only thinks about India
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