100 Days @ Balangir

I joined OLM office as YP at Balangir on 27th May 2013. I completed 100 working days today. Let me redirect reader to details of the place where I am working : Balangir District. Balangir/Bolanagir lies in KBK (Koraput Blangir Kalahandi) region and is considered as one of the country's 250 most backward districts. KBK itself has attracted the attention of policy makers, development planners and the poverty critics due to its persistent underdevelopment from last few decades. As per my observation, this place is working with slow/numb administrative activity supported by overt political agitation.

There is no resource block under OLM (Odisha Livelihood Mission) strategy for this financial year 2013-2014 in Balangir. Hence, I have to solely work with ORMAS (Orissa Rural Development and Marketing Society). Motto of ORMAS is simple- Creating competence and values in rural Orissa. ORMAS was constituted to facilitate for a sustainable livelihood of the rural poor by working with SHG clusters. It is very common that government schemes concentrated on the input supply than outputs marketing ; They always look credit, production and market aspect as separate entities. The intervention strategy of ORMAS has been on capacity building, initiation of Micro Enterprises, micro credit linkage and facilitating sales through different channels. Currently, I have been monitoring and learning through interactions about these clusters. I term them as “islands of goodness” amid terrain of poverty.

Understanding of how public systems work at district and state levels is my first priority. I don't want to get caught up in the details of one grand scheme, losing sight of the whole picture. I have been attending few district level meeting and also trying to know at-least the name of various schemes of central and state government. That itself is a huge task.

While it is considered that the most unproductive activity in an IT company (other than negotiating a higher salary with HR) is making powerpoint presentations! No such work is given to me here. I am also not used as a data operator. That is good. I cherish my mentor for this. I do not expect full-time attention of busy mentor but surely office staff help me with various government formalities when required. I try to utilize time by reading reports and news in office. I also count plenty of time wasted/enjoyed in facebook also.

Development of a region or person is a slow process. I have been given full freedom to learn maximum from field visits. Traveling to field never appear hectic to me and a few relaxed days are always there in the office. The words of Marcel Proust, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."  are sounding more true than ever. Each day at field gives me new insight about this place. It becomes very inspirational to see few individuals who are successfully fighting the battle for better future. Yet, scenes of extreme poverty and illiteracy breaks the heart.

I am an early adapter but still found it tough to adjust to the climate and culture of this place. I have started to understand Odiya but speaking this language is still not my cup of tea. Sometimes frustration and lethargy creeps in the work schedule but it takes time and resources to build a knowledge base. As they always say, Rome wasn't built in a day !

Street Entrepreneurs - 1

India’s most enduring heritage since independence is poverty. Poverty can't be fought by throwing doles and subsidy in the name of government schemes. It can only be done by creating suitable ecosystem for innovative and risk taking individuals. These persons need not to be engineering and management college students. A street vendor with no education is taking more risk and still pursing business is an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is more prevalent and still damn difficult to pursue for people working in unorganised sector. A NCEUS report estimates that in 2005 out of the 485 million persons employed in India, 86 percent or 395 million worked in the unorganised sector, generating 50.6 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product.

Someone once told me to understand how businesses runs, interact with an entrepreneur, even if it is a pawn shop. I didn't get the point back then. Once in the college, I had read few chapters of book Grassroots entrepreneurship : entrepreneurs and micro-enterprises in rural India by Ajit Kanitkar. That became an inspiration for pursuing an interview with a street entrepreneur. I didn't record the facts like an official interview but collected it gradually in chit chat over a time of two months. What I understood of Street Vendors previously was a little value until I interacted with Mr. Binay Pradan. Our main protagonist, Mr. Binay Pradhan, is a Street Entrepreneur without any big degree and runs a Paanipuri Shop. Mr. Binay can't bear the idea of sweating tears for another person who will get profit on his hard work. He stated : "When one works for oneself, then one really puts the heart in the whole business." One of his wisdom lines remain with me - "A person must be good listener when working on the street. And, these days it has became more important to speak good & sweet rather than selling good products."

Family background - He has studied till 10th and family is located in Nayagada, Odisha. He is the eldest of 6 brothers. He was involved with farming. He also had worked in UP, Bihar and Mumbai for total of 10 years before starting his own venture. He was visiting to Harishankar temple as Bol Bam Kanwariya 11 years ago. That was the tipping point for him. He decided to start own business and migrated to Balangir. Hunch rather than market research, was the basis for opening a shop.

Business Model - Mr. Binay earn maximum upto Rs. 15,000 in a month. Cost of raw materials vary upto Rs. 200 to Rs.500 per day. While profit can fluctuate between Rs. 500 to Rs. 1000 on any given day. Also, he procure the raw material from a local trader since the inception of the business. Half the payment is given on the spot while remaining is done on credit. Payment is done as per cash flow obtained through sales. He takes day off on Sunday and rainy day. And he takes long leave for home in summer holidays.

He is married and blessed with three children. Girls are doing good in Class 6th and 9th while son is studying in class 2nd. He wants to impart best education to his children as this is only chance for next generation towards prosperity and respect. I agree with him completely. Education gives us skill to survive in economy and opening of minds. Those who dream about India becoming an economic superpower must support education and entrepreneurship around us.

Social capital

While we have a fair idea of social network, only few know about this is relatively new and multifaceted jargon: Social Capital. The simplest way to understand social capital is through the old adage, “it’s not what you know, but who you know”. There is variety of definitions of this word due to highly contextual nature. In words of wiki social capital is the expected collective or economic benefits derived from the preferential treatment and cooperation between individuals and groups.

I became aware of this term while studying Livelihood and Natural resource management. I recalled concept of social capital while working with producer groups. I started wondering about cohesive nature and community cooperation. Any person in society cooperate as well as compete. Still others may be in conflict. Hence, I saw there is a scope for micro to macro level analysis of social capital. Alas ! I am not an expert on this subject. There is also an absence of consensus on how to measure it due to nature and rigor of indicators. Even if we measure and evaluate, how it can contribute to nurturing of social capital.

While we can see result of good social capital means creation of civic culture and strong democracy inside society. We can see it as more utilitarian in disaster recovery and vulnerability reduction. It works as as ‘glue and grease' and can improve efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated action. So what makes social capital so useful ? As per Robert Putnam and Thomas Sander, it enable individuals to access valuable information, facilitates altruism, find partners for joint economic transactions and facilitate collective action.

As per Current Population Survey (CPS), administered by the U.S. Census Bureau, they measure social capital with these indicators:

•Voting in local elections (such as mayor or school board)
•Frequency of using the internet to express opinions about political or community issues
•Frequency of communicating with family and friends
•Trust of neighbors
•Confidence in institutions (corporations, the media and public schools)

Social capital is associated with a host of desirable outcomes:

• There is more trust and there are more blood donations in towns with lots of civic associations.
• Voter turnout is higher, and financial markets work better (Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales 2008).

A growing literature has pointed out that social capital can also have a ‘dark side’ (Field 2003):

• The Ku Klux Klan, drug-dealers and the mafia rely on social cohesion to ensure co-operation.
• Also, important recent work shows that civic associations can lead to the entrenchment of existing leaders, undermining the quality of governance (Acemoglu, Reed, and Robinson 2013).

Justice for Sneha

There is a common dialouge in bollywood films, “Kanoon andha hota hai” (Law is blind), this line stands cent percent true to every word in reality too. Sneha Singh was working as Young Professional in Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project (BRLP) was mysteriously found dead in a hotel room in Munger,Bihar. Police primarily suspected it to be suicide,but facts point otherwise. She was found hanging from ventilator's door and in half naked condition with her private parts bleeding and body in very bad shape. Police said that she killed herself after watching "Mohabbatein".

She was once Ranchi RJ who took a new path of development professional for the sake of nation building. There is need of Civil protest and use of social network. This is not about me or you; its about justice being delivered to atleast one person. More information can be gathered her - Justiceforsneha ; We all really want a proper crime investigation rather than burial of case under carpet.

Decentralisation - Chronology of Attempts and Committee Reports

The details of the history of attempts to promote decentralized planning from the first plan onwards to the mid-eighties is summarized in the table below:

Why Decentralization?

The main problem of centralized governance is lack of knowledge about local circumstances due to the geographical distance. It also creates psychological distance of government officials from citizens of the remote part. Best case in favor of decentralizing government is that it creates the inclusive institutions. Autonomy for local population to have a voice in government for decision making enables development. But, Political decentralization has no meaning if there is no fiscal decentralization.

Taking from the blog post written long back - As Oates (1993) explained, "the basic economic case for fiscal decentralization is the enhancement of economic efficiency: the provision of local outputs that are differentiated according to local tastes and circumstances results in higher levels of social welfare than centrally determined and more uniform levels of outputs across all jurisdictions.Although this proposition has been developed mainly in a static context (see my treatment of the "Decentralization Theorem,' 1972), the thrust of the argument should also have some validity in a dynamic setting of economic growth." Fiscal Experts have also concluded that decentralized government poses a threat to the macroeconomic stability and is incompatible with prudent fiscal management. (See Prud’homme, 1995; Tanzi, 1996). Among the fiscal experts a broad consensus has been arrived in the context of Musgrave’s trilogy of public functions, namely, allocation, redistribution, and stabilization, that the function of allocation can be assigned to lower level of governments, the other two would be more appropriate for the national government. Therefore, the macroeconomic management, particularly stabilization policy largely consider as clearly a central function (Musgrave, 1983; Oates 1972). [OP Vohra : Fiscal decentralization and devolution of financial resource]