Perspectives

This is a guest post by one of my good friend Rajagopal. Quite a thinker.

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) act was passed in August 2005, which provides a guarantee for 100 days of employment(unskilled labour) to atleast one adult in every household. Though enacting the same took some more time, it is in place now, and rural dwellers below and near poverty line are definitely benefited by this. The laymen call it “The 100 days of employement Plan”. Though this plan appears to be something that would make a positive impact on our economy in the long run, there is a flip side to it which is due to the lack of policies or thoughts put into making this scheme beneficial in the long run, coupled with the attitude of the beneficiaries towards work, and improving their own economic status.

What do you think is be the work being given to these employees?
The act states that it should be public work. That sounds good! This act should ideally provide employment and at the same time get rid of some of the infrastructure and developmental issues associated with the villages, such as bad road, lack of canals into the farming fields, etc.

But in reality, the people responsible for this in the Panchayat boards seem to lack interest or intellectual ability, and incentive to identify the real issues and address them using the funding that comes through this scheme. It seems that these Panchayat boards aren’t being held accountable for getting constructive work done out of these resources, but just to be able to use up these resources to keep the act active.

“This 100 day employment programme is a boon to us. My daughter-in-law gets paid Rs 80/- per day of employment, without having to do much work. She just signs in an entry register, deweeds the place for an hour, informs the supervisor that she needs to milk the cow at home and comes home, goes back in the evening to sign the leaving register.” said a member of a family being benefited by this plan.

“They would just give us a Shovel(Mannvetti), and ask us to uproot the weeds in a field(specifying which area it is).” said the lady when asked about the nature of work. She also added that it is the same field all the time

The Panchayats are empowered to figure out what development work could be done in their village, and get approval from the Panchayats at the higher level(according to point 13 in the Gazette for this act). The people administering these village panchayats seem to not have the ability to identify, plan, raise fund, manage and execute on real development activities that would benefit the village in long term. And moreover, when they are accountable only to provide 100 days of employment to all households, and there is no incentive from the top down to get any useful byproducts out of the same, why would some one do it, unless they are passionate about making the village better.

Now lets get to the other part of this programme which indirectly affects agriculture.

“Most of the workers who used to come for deweeding, ploughing, cultivation and other activities needed to carry out agriculture no more are ready to work in the fields due to the 100 days employment plan, since they get paid without doing any work. The plan had made them lazy. Given that they get rice at Re.1 per kg, they could get enough money to keep them away from hunger for the year through this plan. Though they could come for the farming activities apart from the 100 days of employment and get paid more, they don’t do that. Agriculture is no more easy to manage given the lack of manpower. The lack of manpower is also fuelled by the self help groups that have emerged. Seems like we’ll just have to sell off the farming fields to these builders and go to the cities where our wards live.” says a farmer in the village, who had been cultivating different crops and been providing employment to a lot of people over several years. This resounded with a few other farmers that I happened to interact with.

There two things that appear scary to me in this:
1) The availability of subsidized rice and guaranteed income through NREG is making the rural dwelling unskilled people lazier than before. They lack the incentive to work, learn skills, earn more, etc. They would gradually turn unemployable along with being unskilled, and would become more dependent on the availability of the subsidy over rice from the government.
2) Due to unavailability of manpower forces the conventional farmers to sell off their cultivable lands and head towards the towns and cities. Given that there is already a decline in the percentage of farmers in India due to monsoon dependency of farming, further decline in farming activities would just make things worse. This might even lead to a state where there might be a requirement to import grains if enough attention is not given to the issue.

These are just things that came OTOH, and there might be more.

The NREG Act would greatly benefit the economy if:
1) The Panchayat officers are given management trainings, and educated and incentivized enough to handle this scheme in a constructive manner.
2) Social Entrepreneurs enter this arena, and provide consulting services to these village Panchayats on effectively handling this.
3) Self help groups be encouraged to do farming activities as well; not just commodities. Self help groups have been developing some skilled labour, and had been stimulating the microeconomy of these villages and continue to exist.
4) Educated people should start looking at agriculture in large scale with modern equipments, and farming methods(that require less manpower). This might help sustain the self sufficiency of food in the country. Risk management could also be done by selecting a set of regions that have differing demographics interms of monsoon. Easily said than done, but operational efficiency would become the core of agricultural success.

The first two suggestions are aimed at equipping the Panchayats to be able to make the right plans and decisions locally without having to expect developmental plans to come from the higher ups. This also would ensure that the human resources are being utilised in a constructive manner.

With appropriate incentives and accountability in place for people executing on these plans, this plan would transform the economy in a positive way. But that doesn’t seem to be the current scenario.

PS: All the conversations above are from a small sample set of people in a few villages in the Cauvery Delta Region(Near Poompuhar) of Tamil Nadu, India.

– Rajagopal
(One of those a***oles sitting in his cubicle cozily with a Mac Laptop and typing out a blog post with the dreams of a Knight in White Horse emerging out of nowhere to make these transformations)

Inspired by Howard Gardner’s five minds for the future (I haven’t yet read the book. Really need to), I thought about writing the five minds for the future Indian leader. When I look at the top five, it seems to me that these minds are essential for any leader. But, I don’t know what it takes to run Burkinafaso, so, I will stick to what I think is critical for that leader who is going to sail India through the rough times ahead of us.

Actually, there are just two minds. The Rational/Analytical mind (Cortex) and the Emotional Brain (Amygdala). And all the minds I list below are really just a combination of these two. Now, I say they are midway between the two and not just a part of the Cortex, because an analytical or synthetic knowledge of the following(cortex) followed by a deep sense of commitment and Passion(emotional mind) towards each of these topics is essential to make the cut. And that will happen only in one who has a healthy rational and emotional mind.

There were a number of contenders. I have listed a few that did not make it to my top five towards the end. There are a few others that I have not listed here, because I felt they were not as important or they could be learnt during the course.

Environment: It is burning in Bangalore. And it is just the beginning of March. I have been here for five years now and I haven’t seen anything like this before. Like most of us, I have always known that we are disturbing our environment but was of the opinion that disaster is still a long way away. As a kid, I recollect reading about “El Nino” as early as my eighth grade. Until very recently (a year ago), I was still skeptical about the seriousness of the problem, motivated largely by alternative perspectives such as the Great Global Warming Swindle etc. But, now I am thoroughly convinced that this is a problem that needs attention at the highest levels, such as the leader of the second most populous country. And this is critical for a country that is largely (60% to be precise) agrarian and that has millions of people living in low lying areas (West Bengal, Kutch, Bangladesh).

Economy: This is a country that is confused if it still is socialistic or if it has jumped over to the other side (capitalism). There is emphasis on both and hence the vision and strategy are quite mixed up. The younger generation seems to thoroughly love the reforms of the 1990s and the older generation wonders what was so wrong about their times. Some of the greatest institutions (Indian Railways, State Bank of India, IITs and IIMs) are all products of the socialist regime. A lot of our leaders still have heavy socialist influences. Combine this with the current or potentially current collapse of some countries (economies) built on Capitalism, One begins to wonder what the right thing to do is. I believe my leader should possess a clear understanding on the rationale behind Nehruvian theories and trends in globalization. The world is truly a global village and advances cannot be made without a big picture.

Energy: This might seem a little off place here. Not many people talk of energy as an essential qualification for a leader. I remember sitting in my physics class and reading in my text book that our oil reserves will last only for twenty years, ten years ago. And the more you look (and read) around, the clearer it becomes that those times (Peak Oil, Volatility in the oil market, our increasing dependence) are already here. And unless my leader appreciates the grave energy situation we are in, none of his policies or infrastructural investments are going to make sense in the hard times that we all live (or going to live) in.

Sociology: India is a Europe. It really is 28 cultures put together. There is a lot of literature around the complexity of the concept that India is. And the more you read, the more you know that any one person understands very little. I believe, only that person who sees the soft nuances of millennia of inter relationships between these numerous cultures & demographics from an outsider’s perspective will be able to resolve, relate and communicate with them all. A vision that is inclusive, fair and free for one and all is the need of the hour. Put this in perspective that much of our resources are depleting and that a conflict of interest between civilizations is impending, you probably will realize that to provide solutions for the future, you need to understand the past.

Technology: It might seem like I am technologist and hence I have a preferential bias towards technology as a future mind for my leader. But, it still makes sense to me. Investing in technology for the greater masses for inclusive governance and mitigating corruption & red-tapism is one thing. Understanding technology as a tool to access knowledge for insightful governance is another. And I want my leader to embrace both these ideas in a manner that is unique & Indian. I don’t really care if he reads his emails on Blackberry though.

And one mind that did not make it into this list but I wish it did:

Gandhi: I am fan of this man and I am not even one of the most well read(about him). But, understanding Gandhi still comes out as a no brainer for understanding India. No other man has travelled the lengths and breadths or spent so much time thinking about (and in some cases thinking for) this country as him. Nobody else’ ability to connect with the Indian Masses, consensual prowess or methodologies worked as best as his. And when one looks at the volatile global situation that we have ended up creating in the last half a century, Gandhi’s ideals (economic or otherwise) appear right more than ever.

A few other minds that did not make into my list:
Law
History
Linguistics.

Now, each one of these topics are huge & probably will require the attention of a life time for deep understanding. Unless my leader is a super hero, he is probably not going to be a master of all these five trades. The next best thing is to have a team of people who are experts in each one of these fields to be a part of the core decision making team.

Alright, so this is what I want in my leader? But, is he out there?