About 60 % of our population lives in villages and sustained migration of people form villages to the cities continues with the shift in the nature of economy whereas the villages tend to be largely agricultural communities with little investment in other areas. Most of these villagers are poor. And most of the villages in India lack even the basic infrastructure like power, water supply, sewage system, proper and planned primary education and a planned and effective health care system. The result is that the percentage of rural population, living in villages or migrating to the cities, that is backward in literal sense of the word exceeds the percentage of real backward people in the Other Backward Classes categorized by the politicians and myopic committees of the bureaucrats. A better measure, therefore, to lead to the long term plurality of society is to device policies to support in some way the former class of people, those of the poor rural origin, which at the moment forms a large chunk of the ostensible OBCs.
How improving rural infrastructure can eliminate backwardness in the long run
If rural infrastructure is improved, this would improve the living conditions in villages which, in turn, would stop the migration of people from villages to the cities which would further maintain the balance of the backward people towards the villages, thus justifying sustained efforts in improvement of rural infrastructure till the day when the rural living conditions are at par with those in the cities, at least as much as possible, and there is no more migration of the population from the villages to the cities in search of a better living. Instead rural population in the cities would migrate back to its homeland in that scenario, thus, further reducing the load on the cities. In such a situation, cities would be able to provide decent living conditions to all their residents and villages would have all the facilities for a healthy and decent lifestyle. The backwardness is, thus, removed in the literal sense of the word. The key to elimination of poverty and backwardness may therefore lie entirely in rural infrastructural development rather than the much touted reservation system for the OBCs.
Current reservation system versus long term social equality
Even when extended to the deserving section of the current OBCs, what the current system of reservation achieves in effect is that a child of the poor rural family goes to an institute of higher learning and gets placed in some software multinational or some manufacturing plant in the city. After a few years, he moves his entire family from the village to his home in the city, leasing out his ancestral land to some other farmers to cultivate which, finally, ends up in the sale of the land to some co-villagers. Thus, even after all the reservation, the village largely remains as such…undeveloped. Only a negligible percentage of people benefiting from reservation are rising to such positions of power where they can take the helm of developing, at least, their own village in their own hands. In the long term even this approach of accommodating all such beneficiaries of such a system in the cities, leaving the villages neglected, which results in the long term shift of the population towards the cities, thus, overloading these is unviable.
The needs of the rural infrastructure
The innermost villages of the country don’t have even a single power supply socket whereas riding on the services boom, the Indian economy from the surface is all set to claim itself to be the second most powerful in the world in the coming two decades. Despite all this we don’t see any initiation from the responsible agencies for the rural development of the country. Where else can we find an example of inequitable distribution of wealth that can match this huge gap between the resources, possibilities, opportunities and action. Last year when the central ministry for power asked all the state governments to come up with a detailed plan for total rural electrification in their respective states, notify the same to the central government and achieve the target in 6 months thereafter, none of the state government actually came up with anything by the stipulated deadline and the proposal awaits its fate in doom amidst the full concentration of state and central political parties on the ensuing elections.
The other major problems facing the rural infrastructure besides power are those of water supply, sewage system, primary education and healthcare.
The approaches
A recourse to all those problems that comes to mind is complete privatization of these services and exit of the states. But privatization in those areas would not work to the benefit of the common person since the prime requisite of all such development programs is accessibility, affordability and equity. No private player can be trusted to establish reconciliation between those large interests of the community and the basic motive of a capitalist, profit making. If, with some agreement, the private players are indeed given a responsibility to develop such an equitable distribution system of power, water, sewage system, healthcare and education services in those inaccessible areas today, they would have to charge exorbitant prices for all those services in the face of cost recovery and for faring better than just breaking even in absence of any government subsidy. And such a system, where the target customer would not be able to afford the service, would lose its purpose altogether. The government would, then, need to partly subsidize all those services with the tax payer’s money to the level of making such a system affordable for the general rural customer and at the same time profitable and incentive bearing for the share holders. And wherever the tax payer’s money comes into picture, it brings along the issue of corruption in the disbursement of funds.
The second recourse that seems likely is rigorous initiatives on the part of the central and state government to ensure better, efficient and effective management of the available resources. But none of the educated Indians can be sensibly expected to hope for this kind of miracle to happen in the government machinery at such a large scale across the country.
The first recourse then seems more practical. Perhaps, even the prospect of corruption there could be an incentive for the politicians and bureaucrats to give a heed to such a subsidized privatized system. And as far as the vote bank politics is concerned, the overall rural infrastructural transformation of the country at this scale resulting in the elimination of backwardness altogether is bound to generate more votes for the trailblazer than the Mandal commission’s caste based reservation system for the Other Backward Classes.
How improving rural infrastructure can eliminate backwardness in the long run
If rural infrastructure is improved, this would improve the living conditions in villages which, in turn, would stop the migration of people from villages to the cities which would further maintain the balance of the backward people towards the villages, thus justifying sustained efforts in improvement of rural infrastructure till the day when the rural living conditions are at par with those in the cities, at least as much as possible, and there is no more migration of the population from the villages to the cities in search of a better living. Instead rural population in the cities would migrate back to its homeland in that scenario, thus, further reducing the load on the cities. In such a situation, cities would be able to provide decent living conditions to all their residents and villages would have all the facilities for a healthy and decent lifestyle. The backwardness is, thus, removed in the literal sense of the word. The key to elimination of poverty and backwardness may therefore lie entirely in rural infrastructural development rather than the much touted reservation system for the OBCs.
Current reservation system versus long term social equality
Even when extended to the deserving section of the current OBCs, what the current system of reservation achieves in effect is that a child of the poor rural family goes to an institute of higher learning and gets placed in some software multinational or some manufacturing plant in the city. After a few years, he moves his entire family from the village to his home in the city, leasing out his ancestral land to some other farmers to cultivate which, finally, ends up in the sale of the land to some co-villagers. Thus, even after all the reservation, the village largely remains as such…undeveloped. Only a negligible percentage of people benefiting from reservation are rising to such positions of power where they can take the helm of developing, at least, their own village in their own hands. In the long term even this approach of accommodating all such beneficiaries of such a system in the cities, leaving the villages neglected, which results in the long term shift of the population towards the cities, thus, overloading these is unviable.
The needs of the rural infrastructure
The innermost villages of the country don’t have even a single power supply socket whereas riding on the services boom, the Indian economy from the surface is all set to claim itself to be the second most powerful in the world in the coming two decades. Despite all this we don’t see any initiation from the responsible agencies for the rural development of the country. Where else can we find an example of inequitable distribution of wealth that can match this huge gap between the resources, possibilities, opportunities and action. Last year when the central ministry for power asked all the state governments to come up with a detailed plan for total rural electrification in their respective states, notify the same to the central government and achieve the target in 6 months thereafter, none of the state government actually came up with anything by the stipulated deadline and the proposal awaits its fate in doom amidst the full concentration of state and central political parties on the ensuing elections.
The other major problems facing the rural infrastructure besides power are those of water supply, sewage system, primary education and healthcare.
The approaches
A recourse to all those problems that comes to mind is complete privatization of these services and exit of the states. But privatization in those areas would not work to the benefit of the common person since the prime requisite of all such development programs is accessibility, affordability and equity. No private player can be trusted to establish reconciliation between those large interests of the community and the basic motive of a capitalist, profit making. If, with some agreement, the private players are indeed given a responsibility to develop such an equitable distribution system of power, water, sewage system, healthcare and education services in those inaccessible areas today, they would have to charge exorbitant prices for all those services in the face of cost recovery and for faring better than just breaking even in absence of any government subsidy. And such a system, where the target customer would not be able to afford the service, would lose its purpose altogether. The government would, then, need to partly subsidize all those services with the tax payer’s money to the level of making such a system affordable for the general rural customer and at the same time profitable and incentive bearing for the share holders. And wherever the tax payer’s money comes into picture, it brings along the issue of corruption in the disbursement of funds.
The second recourse that seems likely is rigorous initiatives on the part of the central and state government to ensure better, efficient and effective management of the available resources. But none of the educated Indians can be sensibly expected to hope for this kind of miracle to happen in the government machinery at such a large scale across the country.
The first recourse then seems more practical. Perhaps, even the prospect of corruption there could be an incentive for the politicians and bureaucrats to give a heed to such a subsidized privatized system. And as far as the vote bank politics is concerned, the overall rural infrastructural transformation of the country at this scale resulting in the elimination of backwardness altogether is bound to generate more votes for the trailblazer than the Mandal commission’s caste based reservation system for the Other Backward Classes.
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