Introduction
Sri C.E.Karunakaran of Center
for Ecology and Rural Development(CERD)
and Tamilnadu
Science Foundation(TNSF) visited the Bay
area a few weeks ago and gave an informal talk to a few of us at the Indo-American
Community Service Center(ICSC). Here is a
summary of the talk.
CERD, started by Sri Sundaraman a medical professional, has been in existence for about 4 years now. Initially, they were concentrating on research issues like efficient use of fertilizers but these days they are concentrating more on projects that address the immediate concerns of people.
Among other things, TNSF is also concentrating on rural employment generation and industrialization which should probably be done by other organizations.
Rural Health Projects:
TNSF has started a health project in 100 blocks with each block comprising between 20 and 30 villages. The aim of this project is to bridge the gap that exists between the public health system and the people. The gap exists because of resource constraints, implementation problems and lack of communication.
TNSF has learnt that it does not pay to tell people that they should keep their surroundings clean, boil their drinking water etc. because people have lots of other pressing needs and most of them tend to ignore the advice given by health professionals. Similarly, it has also learnt population control can be achieved not through birth control, but only through health improvement for the mother and the child.
One of the projects deals with monitoring the health of young babies. Volunteers classify the children into different categories based on the weight, general health and give advice to parents about what they can do if their child is in the lowest category. He says that every mother wants to provide the best for her child but sometimes they are led astray by the marketing machine of the huge corporations. For example, most mothers think that Cerelac and other such costly cereals are necessary if their child is to be healthy. However, since these are expensive, they try to reduce the quantity consumed by diluting the portion that they give to their children thereby under-nourishing them.
This project also concentrates on preventive health care and promotion of the rational use of medicines for adults(Most of the private doctors in rural areas survive based on the efficacy myth of the allopathic medicine).
The above project is completely run by volunteers. Part-time volunteers who are employed in other occupations like teaching are not paid. Full time volunteers are paid around 500 Rs/month. These are mostly young women.
The program is currently sustained by grants from organizations like UNICEF, USAID etc. but they are planning to make it self-sustainable by starting a concurrent micro-credit program. However, this assumption is questionable since many of the micro-credit programs themselves are not self-sustainable.
Rural Micro-credit:
Private lenders survive because they are the only ones who can give loans in an emergency. However, they charge exorbitant rates and most of the time they will not accept installments since it's not convenient for them with the result that the borrowers have to shell out more money. In some places, private lenders also act as trustworthy individuals with whom people can deposit their savings(often without any interest) thus acting as a bank.
Micro-credit institutions are effective in tackling these problems but they are not very effective in promoting entrepreneurship. Previously banks existed only for the urban folk but now it has reached out to the rural poor as well through these micro-credit institutions.
The different types of people who borrow money from micro-credit lending institutions include:
The Malar micro-credit program based in Kanyakumari has circulated about 2 crore rupees. It has around 10,000 members and is very helpful monetarily to the people affected by it, but more importantly it is an organization to raise social awareness.
Women feel liberated and empowered when they meet for 1-2 hrs every week through the Malar scheme.Malar promotes a community forum in which the poor people can discuss problems which concern them and come up with solutions.
He gave an example: an old woman had four children and since she did not want to bother any one of them she used to spend equal amount of time in each of her children's homes. When she passed away while staying in one of her daughter's home, the other three children refused to share the funeral expenses. Many people who read this in a newsletter were very emotionally upset and not wanting to place a burden on others for their funeral expenses, started an insurance scheme to cover funereal expenses.
He also pointed out that the high rate of return (~97%) is obtained only at a certain cost. Women who are afraid that lossage in the group might mean disgrace actually borrow money from other people at a higher cost. Some of them are forced to sell some of their belongings.
Small scale industries:
TNSF is involved in development of employment opportunities for poor people in deprived(dry) areas. This program is being carried out in two different blocks.
The fundamental problem facing small scale entrepreneurs is MARKETING and not training or credit. With the spread of television into the remote villages of India, the marketing machines of the big industrial houses have been able to influence lot more people. Even people living in villages want to buy the soaps made by Hindustan Lever. Moreover, the middle class in the villages buys all the latest gadgets with the result that very little of their purchasing power is used to purchase local goods.
Malar started a small garment making unit with a capital of about 2 lakhs employing about 20-25 people, but they were unable to compete against the bigger mills. Finding market was difficult and most of the shops which purchased the goods require a 3-4 month period before they pay the amount. However, self-employed individuals fare better. He gave an example of a woman who does all the work and her husband who helps her in selling it by traveling to different houses and giving them credit for their purchases.
Handicrafts are normally glorified but they have a very small market. For the small scale industries to be successful, rural spending power needs to be increased and people should become aware of the influence that media marketing has on them.
Spending power can be increased by moving more
people to agriculture, carrying out land reforms, making people literate,
decentralization and making the panchayats more effective. West Bengal
has been very successful in implementing land reforms and in Kerala, 50%
of the state budget goes to panchayats. The Christian community played
a very important role in social development in Kerala. Even though Kerala
has far fewer industries than other states, socially it is a very advanced
compared to other states.For example, there is no child labour in the fire-works
industries in Kollam in Kerala, but there is extensive child labour in
Sivakasi in Tamilnadu.
Policy level changes:
The work done by social organizations like TNSF, BCT and others do make a significant difference for the people who benefit from their work. However, this set of people is a tiny fraction of the entire population. The NGOs have not been able to make a significant change in the life of the masses and he strongly feels that this can happen only through macro-economic policy changes and awareness among the middle class people when they realize the gross inequities that they help to perpetuate.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia had written a paper ten years ago that if 2% of the budget was spent on rural development instead of spending it on huge projects, the growth rate after 20 years would have reduced by a small amount, but the bottom 40% of the population would be much better off. Everyone knows this, but the will to implement it politically is not there.
More investment needs to be done in irrigation(conservation of water resources, raising of water table). 2/3 of people dependent on agricultural income in 1947 and 2/3 of our national income was from agriculture, but today even though same number of people are still involved in agriculture, only 1/3 of our income is from agriculture(thereby increasing the income gap??).
Rahul Bajaj talks about requirement for a "period of adjustment" when the Indian government wants to open up the economy for foreign investors, but why aren't the rural workers provided the same. Many of the hand-loom weavers in Andhra Pradesh have committed suicide due to their inability to compete against the onslaught of huge industrial conglomerates.
Literacy and awareness generation:
He mentioned the brilliant marketing work done by M.P. Parameswaran and Anil Bhodia to promote functional literacy.
M.P. Parameswaran has also started a movement among the scientific community to change the mind-set of the people; the middle class elite in many institutions get together regularly and discuss the social issues. Inspired by this, TNSF has also started a millennium dialog movement to make people aware of the social inequities.
Q and A:
Q: Why do orgnansations like World bank
and USAID give loans to micro-credit institutions? Is it to contain unrest?
A: Might
be true. Also, the recovery rate is very high (~97%) compared to industrial
loans which are around (~60%)!
Q: Should Adivasis be allowed to spend
their lives as they live now or should we drag them into modern society?
A:They will inevitably
come into the modern world but we should make the transition smoother and
simpler. Gandhi's ideals of living in a village, consuming only local goods
are inapplicable today. We cannot stop the globalization wave from sweeping
India. But we should try to smoothen the blow to the disadvantaged people.
Q: What can NRI's do to tackle social
issues in India?
More discussions among yourselves about
issues and make people aware of them since you all have better access to
various media. Talk to people. Continue to do the type of small-scale project
support that you are doing now.
Q: How does one tackle issues at the
village level? How does one approach a village?
You need not bother to do research about issues
that affect people. Give the people a forum where they can meet and discuss.
They will come up with issues. If a city girl wearing a churidhar just
goes and talks to some of the village girls, it gives them a lot of hope
and confidence.
Q: How does one promote rural enterprises?
Create market for them. Make credit available.
Tackle cluster industries like the mill industries in Tiruppur and fire-works
industry in Sivakasi which exploit a lot of people. Small scale rural employment
can be done in these industries but a few people have a grip on the entire
industry and they exploit a lot of people. In these places 70% of the employees
are women, but only 1% of the owners are women. Invest more in agriculture