The concept of ‘Inclusive Growth’ finds place more frequently in the debates and discussions at different forums. The Government aimed at promoting ‘inclusive growth’ as it recognized that high national income growth alone did not address the challenge of employment promotion, poverty reduction and balanced regional development or improving human development.
The subject of inclusive growth has been in the spotlight recently, for very obvious reasons. This orientation is most visibly manifested in the theme of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. The theme is ‘towards faster and more inclusive growth,’ which clearly reflects the need to find a sustainable balance between growth and inclusion. Many people view ‘inequality’ and ‘exclusiveness’ as being the same thing.
The Eleventh Plan defines inclusive growth to be “a growth process which yields broad-based benefits and ensures equality of opportunity for all”.
The inclusive growth and development vision as envisaged in the Five Year Plan also reflected the budgetary and political commitment of the government. Though, efforts and progress in the direction of inclusive growth and development appears to be quite satisfactory, however, challenges, problems and constraints in achieving the goals of inclusive planning have emerged that require multiple approaches and strategies to address them effectively and efficiently.)
Inclusive Growth:-
Inclusive growth is a major concern for human development in India with rising inequalities.
Despite tremendous growth of economy, failure on distributive front has aggravated the progressive journey towards collective well-being.
Inclusive growth has become the buzzword in policy-spheres with recent phenomenon of rapid growth with characteristic patterns of exclusion. Exclusion continued in terms of low agriculture growth, low quality employment growth, low human development, rural-urban divides, gender and social inequalities, and regional disparities etc.
The sectoral, social and spatial inequalities have raised questions about welfare approaches of Government planning, and emphasized the role of the private sector in addressing development issues in the country.
Employment generation, social and developmental infrastructure, health-care and rural diversification are some of the major concerns.
Due to faulty approaches and often politically motivated policies, growth has generated inequalities. It is imperative for the planners and policy-makers to make growth inclusive through adoption of pragmatic policies.
The journey towards balancing the outcome of economic growth involves many challenges. The dominant challenges include the imperative of maintaining the acceleration of economic growth without compromising on human development and sustainability.
The Eleventh Five Year Plan Strategy is ‘Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth’.The Approach Paper states that the Plan provides “an opportunity to restructure policies to achieve a new vision based on faster, more broad-based and inclusive growth. It is designed to reduce poverty and focus on brining the various divides that continue to fragment our society.”
These are the broad objectives that successive Five Year Plans in India have sought to achieve in some form or the other right from the beginning. Of course, the context of economic reform, involving changes in the economic policy framework since 1991, has called for a careful scrutiny of the distributional consequences of the growth process and an appropriate strategy to deal with the emerging issues.
WHAT IS INCLUSIVE GROWTH?
The Eleventh Plan defined inclusive growth as a “growth process which yields broad-based benefits and ensures equality of opportunity for all” it stands for “equitable development” or “growth with social justice”.
WHY INCLUSIVE GROWTH?
While it is quite evident that inclusive growth is imperative for achieving the equity objective, what is, perhaps, not so obvious is, why inclusive growth is now considered essential even to sustain the growth momentum.
Majority population living in rural areas, it is often identified with the agriculture sector. However, it is the unorganised non-farm sector that is increasingly absorbing most of the labour force.
This sector has huge potential for growth once there is sufficient investment in infrastructure ensuring linkage to markets and easier access to assets and skills. Infusion of appropriate technology, skills, and easier access to credit, especially start-up capital, apart from facilitating market development, can make this segment an expanding base for self-sustaining employment and wealth generation and also foster a culture of creative and competitive industry.
Entrepreneurial development has to be encouraged by having an enabling competitive environment and easy availability of finance for newer projects and enterprises.
In Prof. C. K. Prahalad’s words, “If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden, and start recognising them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value conscious consumers, a whole world of opportunity will open up.”
Thus, there are several factors to be considered for inclusive growth. Uppermost among these, is the need for raising the allocative efficiency of investment and resource use across different sectors of economy – this can be met by addressing two basic supply-side issues viz.
(i) effective credit delivery system to facilitate productive investment in employment impacting sectors especially, agriculture, micro, small and medium enterprises and
(ii) large scale investment in infrastructural facilities like irrigation, roads, railways, communication, ports, power, rural/ urban reconstruction and in social infrastructure such as health care, education and sanitation.
INCLUSIVE GROWTH IN INDIA
From an annual average growth rate of 3.5 per cent during 1950 to 1980, the growth rate of the Indian economy accelerated to around 6.0 per cent in the 1980s and 1990s.
Reflecting the high economic growth and a moderation in population growth rate, the per capita income of the country also increased substantially in the recent years. An important characteristic of the high growth phase in recent years is its resilience to shocks.
The Indian economy, for instance, successfully avoided any adverse contagion impact of the East Asian crisis, sanctions like situation post-Pokhran nuclear test, and border conflict with a neighboring country during May-June 1999 and recent economic crisis in USA.
Despite the impressive numbers, growth has failed to be sufficiently inclusive, particularly after the mid-1990s. Agricultural sector which provides employment to around 60 per cent of the population lost its growth momentum from that point, though there has been a reversal of this trend since 2005-06.
The percentage of India’s population below the poverty line has declined from 36 per cent in 1993-94 to 26 per cent in 1999-2000. The approach paper to the Eleventh Plan indicated that the absolute number of poor is estimated to be approximately 300 million in 2004-05.
Concerns about financial exclusion, especially in rural areas have surfaced in India in recent years following the results of the NSSO’s All-India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS), 2002.
According to the Survey results, though the share of non-institutional sources of credit for the cultivator households had declined from 92.7 per cent in 1951 to 30.6 per cent in 1991, it had increased to 38.9 per cent in 2002 mainly due to increase in moneylenders’ share. Simultaneously, the share of institutional sources such as commercial banks, co-operative societies, etc. increased from 7.3 per cent in 1951 to 66.3 per cent in 1991, before declining to 61.1 per cent in 2002.
It is expected that the doubling of agriculture credit and other measures since 2004 would have led to some improvement in the share of institutional sources.
CHALLENGES AHEAD AND SOLUTIONS:
The challenge is expressed in different ways—”improving quality of public expenditures” or “increasing institutional capacity” or “more effective implementation” or “better service delivery”.
In sixty five years since its independence, India has been successful on a number of fronts: the country has maintained electoral democracy, reduced absolute poverty by more than half, dramatically improved literacy, and vastly improved health conditions. Its achievements have, however, created new challenges. Two of the most prominent are:
1. Improving the delivery of core public services: As incomes rise, citizens are demanding better delivery of core public services such as water and power supply, education, policing, sanitation, roads and public health. As physical access to services improves, issues of quality have become more central.
There are four avenues for reform: internal reform of public sector agencies; producing regular and reliable information for citizens; strengthening local governments and decentralizing responsibilities; and expanding the role of non-state providers. It however cautions that planned reform alone cannot bring about the desired changes – ultimately implementation is everything.
2. Maintaining rapid growth while making growth more inclusive: With growing disparities between urban and rural areas, prosperous and lagging states, skilled and low-skilled workers, the primary medium term policy challenge for India is not to raise growth from 8 to 10 percent but to sustain rapid growth while spreading its benefits more widely.
CONSTRAINTS TO OVERALL GROWTH:-
Infrastructure: India needs to invest an additional 3-4 per cent of GDP on infrastructure to sustain current levels of growth and to equalize its benefits. Although this will clearly require a government role, the relative roles of the government and private sector need to be defined.
The massive demands now on power networks, transport, urban infrastructure, and ports are the result of India’s success in promoting economic growth. The danger is that poor economic infrastructure now will put a brake on that overall growth. Infrastructure is also important to equalize growth—investments that raise productivity and farmer incomes in agriculture, infrastructure that help jobs move to people, as well as the infrastructure that is needed to connect rural India with the benefits of a growing economy.
Fiscal deficit: The excess expenditure over income is to be funded almost wholly through government borrowing. Fiscal discipline is vital to contain this problem.
REFORMS TO IMPROVE ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY
Labor regulations: India’s restrictive labor regulations have constrained the growth of the formal manufacturing sector. Better designed regulations can attract more labor- intensive investment and improve the job prospects for India’s unemployed millions, those trapped in poor quality jobs, and the 80 million new entrants who are expected to join the work force over the next decade.
Financial sector: Problems in accessing finance are a major impediment to the performance of small and medium size businesses in India. Improving financial intermediation and ensuring broader access to financial services is critical for equalizing growth. Inclusive growth needs financial institutions to be strong and efficient.
The experience with cooperative banks under dual regulation, and deposit taking NBFCs with poor governance, points out the challenges in ensuring effective regulation and supervision of entities allowed to access public deposits.
While aligning regulation with international best practices, a more relaxed approach is adopted in India for smaller units such as regional rural banks and small urban cooperative banks operating within a district, without compromising on solvency and liquidity principles.
AGRICULTURE AND THE RURAL ECONOMY
Raising agricultural productivity requires a return to investments in agricultural technology and infrastructure. Getting the rural economy moving will also require facilitating rural-non farm entrepreneurship.
LAGGING STATES
Faster economic growth has seen rising inter-state disparities. Lagging states need to bring more jobs to their people by creating an attractive investment destination.
Reforming cumbersome regulatory procedures, improving rural connectivity, establishing law and order, creating a stable platform for natural resource investment that balances business interests with social concerns, and providing rural finance are important.Good understanding and coordination between the government machinery is essential for development and inclusive growth.
RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT
This Act will make awareness among the people about different schemes introduced by the government from time to time and their implementation. This will help them for better utilization of the schemes.
PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
Public-private partnerships (PPP) can play an increased role in the provision of services of all types, from telecommunications to health, from airport modernization to primary education. As with all other service delivery reforms merely involving the private sector (which could be either for profit or for non- profit (e.g. NGO)) cannot be expected to improve services unless it increases account abilities.
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
• In social sector, significant achievements in education and health.
• In the HDI index of India ranked at 119 in 2010. India belongs to Medium Human development category. UNDP 2010 report says that Indian income grows, but not development and it also pointed out that income inequalities are increasing.
• Social indicators are much lower for Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes.
• Malnutrition among children is one major problem (46% of children suffer from malnutrition) are to be given top priority for inclusive growth.
ENVIRONMENT
• Degradation of land, water. Increase in pollution levels
• Challenges of climate change
• Consumption patterns of rich
•Higher economic growth should not lead to decline in our environment
EMPOWERMENT AND OPPORTUNITY
In order to achieve inclusive growth, policy reforms should focus on empowerment and opportunity—enabling all Indian citizens to engage with the emerging economy on fair terms. Expanding rural infrastructure is good, but without complementary investments in empowerment and opportunity will not be enough. Increased access to rural finance can be important, but only if embedded with other reforms to make the rural economy work for the poor.
ACCOUNTABILITY OF REFORMS
Outlays do not necessarily mean outcomes. The people of the country are concerned with outcome. Emphasis should be laid on the need to improve the quality of implementation and enhance the efficiency and accountability of the delivery mechanism. The fruits of reforms are now being enjoyed by the rich and to some extent by the middle class and they are not reaching the poor. Hence, efforts should be made in this direction.
INCLUSIVE GROWTH WITH RESPECT TO EMPLOYMENT
• Generation of productive employment (decent work) for labour force in the economy, as employment is a key to inclusive growth,
• Employment generation in all sectors, regions and for all socio-economic groups
• Particularly (1) for poorer sections of population, (2) backward regions, (3) lagging sectors and (4) ST / SC / OBC / women etc
• Inclusion of small enterprises / producers preferably in a decentralized framework
• Controlling inequalities and disparities. In this context, NREGA is yielding good results, but the following loop-holes should be paid immediate attention.
• It lacks a long term perspective in designing and in implementation.
• Weak planning component: (1) lack of perspective planning, (2) lack of convergence and (3) lack of multi- level planning.
• Designing problems of NREGA: Role of institutions / social mobilization not recognized
• Lack of commitment, and poor supervision & monitoring
• Lack of political strategy to address structural issues
• Corruption.
LAND
While raising agricultural productivity is a must to cope with the shrinkage of agricultural land, the very slow growth of non-farm opportunities for employment (The rising demand for industrialization, including SEZs, and for housing in expanding urban areas) and livelihoods and social security for small holders poses a challenge and argue for a careful and calibrated approach for land acquisition.
SOCIAL SECURITY
Providing social security is a challenge. As in the previous plans, the 11th Plan proposes targeted livelihood support programmes aimed at increasing productivity and incomes of the poor in several low income occupations, such as small and micro enterprises weavers, artisans, crafts men, etc. Lack of concern and commitment by the government poses a threat for the plight of these unorganized sections.
The recent suicides of weavers in certain parts of the country reflect lack of concern. In this context, the recommendation of National Commission for Enterprises in the unorganized Sector NCEUS 2006) assume significance.
The Government has introduced schemes to provide social security coverage through life cover, health insurance and old age pension on the lines recommended by NCEUS, but by restricting to sections of below poverty line (BPL) house holds. It will be better if this is extended to middle class house holds also.
INCLUSIVE GOVERNANCE
Governance has to be viewed and shaped in the context of ongoing social change through the functioning of our democratic system. Experience has amply demonstrated that anticipatory or inclusive governance is indispensable for achieving inclusive growth.
Creation of legal entitlements for an individual’s right to work has added to resilienceand dynamism in our rural economy. The right to information and the right to education are effective tools of empowerment for removing social imbalances. The country has carried for long enough the burden of hunger and malnutrition.
After detailed consultations with all stakeholders including State Governments, we are close to the finalisation of National Food Security Bill (NFSB) which will be introduced in the Parliament during the course of this year.
To conclude, inclusive growth is a wider connotation encompassing social, economic and political factors. Socially, lack of inclusive growth leads to unrest among many people. The measures which raise equity also promote economic growth.
The political argument is that no government in a democracy can afford to ignore large sections of workers and non-working population. If it is not inclusive it can generate very severe social tensions. Thus, politically, for having a stable and democratic society one needs to have inclusive growth.
Components of Inclusive Growth :-
- Agriculture Development
- Industrial Development
- Environment
- Protection
- Poverty Reduction
- Employment Generation
- Reduction in Regional Disparities
- Equal distribution of income
- Social Sector Development
- Governance
- Justice must reach the poor
Benefits of Inclusive Growth :-
- Lower incidence of poverty.
- Broad-based and significant improvement in health outcomes.
- Universal access for children to school.
- Increased access to higher education and improved standards of education, including skill development.
- Better opportunities for both wage employment and livelihood.
- Improvement in provision of basic amenities like water, electricity, roads, sanitation and housing.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.
Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.
Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.
a) Based on Departure from Normal
Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C
b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature
Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C
Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C
If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day
It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.
Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.
It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.
Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.
However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.
a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).
b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).
c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).
d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.
Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).
The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.
Norman Borlaug and MS Swaminathan in a wheat field in north India in March 1964
Political independence does not have much meaning without economic independence.
One of the important indicators of economic independence is self-sufficiency in food grain production.
The overall food grain scenario in India has undergone a drastic transformation in the last 75 years.
India was a food-deficit country on the eve of Independence. It had to import foodgrains to feed its people.
The situation became more acute during the 1960s. The imported food had to be sent to households within the shortest possible time.
The situation was referred to as ‘ship to mouth’.
Presently, Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns are overflowing with food grain stocks and the Union government is unable to ensure remunerative price to the farmers for their produce.
This transformation, however, was not smooth.
In the 1960s, it was disgraceful, but unavoidable for the Prime Minister of India to go to foreign countries with a begging bowl.
To avoid such situations, the government motivated agricultural scientists to make India self-sufficient in food grain production.
As a result, high-yield varieties (HYV) were developed. The combination of seeds, water and fertiliser gave a boost to food grain production in the country which is generally referred to as the Green Revolution.
The impact of the Green Revolution, however, was confined to a few areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh in the north and (unified) Andhra Pradesh in the south.
Most of the remaining areas were deficit in food grain production.
Therefore the Union government had to procure food grain from surplus states to distribute it among deficit ones.
At the time, farmers in the surplus states viewed procurement as a tax as they were prevented from selling their surplus foodgrains at high prices in the deficit states.
As production of food grains increased, there was decentralisation of procurement. State governments were permitted to procure grain to meet their requirement.
The distribution of food grains was left to the concerned state governments.
Kerala, for instance, was totally a deficit state and had to adopt a distribution policy which was almost universal in nature.
Some states adopted a vigorous public distribution system (PDS) policy.
It is not out of place to narrate an interesting incident regarding food grain distribution in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s implemented a highly subsidised rice scheme under which poor households were given five kilograms of rice per person per month, subject to a ceiling of 25 kilograms at Rs 2 per kg. The state government required two million tonnes of rice to implement the scheme. But it received only on one million tonne from the Union government.
The state government had to purchase another million tonne of rice from rice millers in the state at a negotiated price, which was higher than the procurement price offered by the Centre, but lower than the open market price.
A large number of studies have revealed that many poor households have been excluded from the PDS network, while many undeserving households have managed to get benefits from it.
Various policy measures have been implemented to streamline PDS. A revamped PDS was introduced in 1992 to make food grain easily accessible to people in tribal and hilly areas, by providing relatively higher subsidies.
Targeted PDS was launched in 1997 to focus on households below the poverty line (BPL).
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) was introduced to cover the poorest of the poor.
Annapoorna Scheme was introduced in 2001 to distribute 10 kg of food grains free of cost to destitutes above the age of 65 years.
In 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed by Parliament to expand and legalise the entitlement.
Conventionally, a card holder has to go to a particular fair price shop (FPS) and that particular shop has to be open when s/he visits it. Stock must be available in the shop. The card holder should also have sufficient time to stand in the queue to purchase his quota. The card holder has to put with rough treatment at the hands of a FPS dealer.
These problems do not exist once ration cards become smart cards. A card holder can go to any shop which is open and has available stocks. In short, the scheme has become card holder-friendly and curbed the monopoly power of the FPS dealer. Some states other than Chhattisgarh are also trying to introduce such a scheme on an experimental basis.
More recently, the Government of India has introduced a scheme called ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ which enables migrant labourers to purchase rations from the place where they reside. In August 2021, it was operational in 34 states and Union territories.
The intentions of the scheme are good but there are some hurdles in its implementation which need to be addressed. These problems arise on account of variation in:
It is not clear whether a migrant labourer gets items provided in his/her native state or those in the state s/he has migrated to and what prices will s/he be able to purchase them.
The Centre must learn lessons from the experiences of different countries in order to make PDS sustainable in the long-run.
For instance, Sri Lanka recently shifted to organic manure from chemical fertiliser without required planning. Consequently, it had to face an acute food shortage due to a shortage of organic manure.
Some analysts have cautioned against excessive dependence on chemical fertiliser.
Phosphorus is an important input in the production of chemical fertiliser and about 70-80 per cent of known resources of phosphorus are available only in Morocco.
There is possibility that Morocco may manipulate the price of phosphorus.
Providing excessive subsidies and unemployment relief may make people dependent, as in the case of Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
It is better to teach a person how to catch a fish rather than give free fish to him / her.
Hence, the government should give the right amount of subsidy to deserving people.
The government has to increase livestock as in the case of Uruguay to make the food basket broad-based and nutritious. It has to see to it that the organic content in the soil is adequate, in order to make cultivation environmentally-friendly and sustainable in the long-run.
In short, India has transformed from a food-deficit state to a food-surplus one 75 years after independence. However, the government must adopt environmental-friendly measures to sustain this achievement.