Art at Channapatna
November 15th, 2009
Rural Track has travelled places and here we have brought the craft from Channapatna, a town from Karnataka.
In the video you can view the artisan working on a rattle used for children which will be exported.
NREGA – National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
November 10th, 2009
What is the buzz about it after four years? Is it really one of the successful Acts passed by the Government? Has it truly worked for the rural folks and the farmers? Has it accomplished to alleviate poverty?
Among the slew of policies introduced by the government to stimulate employment and create sustainable livelihoods; NREGA is one of them. There is a surge in the discussions, articles published and debates reviewing the success of this Act, after lapse of four years of its passing in the Parliament.
Introduction:
The Minister of Rural Development, Sri, C.P. Joshi during the 2005 term of the UPA government, under the aegis of Ministry of Rural Development passed the bill in the Parliament creating the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and raising a hope of continuous employment all over India (especially in the rural). Since then people have looked forward for the benefits of this legislative move.
It emerged out of the memorandum of recommendations submitted by the members of Wada Na Todo Abhiyan to the Ministry of Rural Development. This was primarily implemented to bring in transparency in the wealth distribution system executed by various government policies.
Primary objective (Source: Ministry of Rural Development):
Enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
A question would arise whether there is no other policy that has been introduced in the past which focuses on this objective. The answer is “Yes, there have been many steps taken in the past to create perpetual opportunities for employment in the rural. This Act is unique because, the objectives also added the term transparency which is hidden in the not so called bureaucratic mannerisms of the men-in-charge.
This step taken by the Government has been appreciated by many critics. From a perspective to understand this subject better I have consolidated a few instances and experiences of the farmers to showcase the advantages of the Act and in how many ways it has backfired.
NREGA, at the union level has insisted on employing all the people willing to work for daily wages, especially for the manual work. Farmers of all classes of society looked for transparency and accountability provisions as community work and consolidated land development was replaced by the individual land holdings.
UPA Government also claims that this scheme provides employment for 100 days for a particular salary irrespective of which social class one belongs to.
No matter how much the term “transparency” has been glorified, we have instances like the social audit at Bhilwara proving the failure of this scheme. Thanks to NGOs which participated in this audit, tracing a mis-match in the accounts amounting over 1 crore rupees. Many other village administrators belonging to Rajasthan were questioned in this matter.
NREGA has not been a complete failure but, has kept up to the expectations when we hear the success story of Parsa Par gram panchayat. Reports claim that in this project over 13,000 people were provided employment.
We have to wait and see how far this Scheme will help in alleviating poverty and making Vision 2020 a reality.
Real India
September 6th, 2009
“Real India lives in the villages”, this was quoted by the first Indian Prime Minister Mr.Jawaharlal Nehru. This statement is true even today.
The United Nations has stated in 2008, that most countries in the world would see urbanization but, for India it would not be before 2050. The people, age-old culture, tourist wonders, the money making business opportunities all exist in the rural. The focus is slowly shifting from the urban to the rural; the government as well as private concerns are looking at the rural areas for growth and sustenance.
Rural India has been a great cushion during the days of financial downturn, which affected the entire world. We are still able to manage a positive GDP growth rate because of the promising opportunities and untapped avenues in the rural.
Though there seems to be a smooth road ahead, those convincing factors discussed in the high-end conferences do not seem to help the rural population. A revolution needs to be triggered; a new battle needs to be fought for the financial independence and freedom from bureaucracy.
There are two major occupations which provide livelihood to the rural people. One is agriculture which occupies the labour in the farm and the rich farmers who own farm land. To deal with the employment problems in this field the government has introduced NREGA (which is the focus in the upcoming article). The other major occupation is art and craft, which brings the involvement of small scale industry. Art and craft is diverse all through India and is dependent on the cultural aspects of the region. Hence, this area of work faces the problem of no sustainable employment, not even seasonal employment.
Rural Development organizations and especially Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) has brought out the need for more and more employment opportunities to be created for the rural folks. There is a need for entrepreneurial initiatives for in rural India, where the artisans can create employment for themselves and also employ other artisans involved in the craft.
The skills and abilities to enable self-employment are provided in abundance to the urban youth. Rural India is looking for help from urban folks to create better employment opportunities and revolutionize the economic and recruitment system prevailing in the rural areas. To add to this, the United Nations report also stated that “the focus for increasing employment opportunities should be in the non-farm sector”
Let us start the revolution.
Journey to the “City of wooden toys”
August 24th, 2009
An artist making wooden bangles at the factory
This is neither a village nor a city; it is a town in the Bangalore Rural District. The town is also known as the “City of Wooden toys”, it is Channapatna which is 60kms away from Bangalore. This town nurtures an art form belonging to the age of Tipu Sultan. During the reign of Tipu Sultan artisans from Persia were invited to train the local artists in the making of wooden toys.
The exploration started with my visit to a factory at Tattekere. The artists described the process of manufacturing the toys.
- Wood is bought from the forest department based on the weight.
- The types of wood used to make these articles are cedar, rubber wood, ivory wood, sycamore, pine, teak, red wood and so on.
- Then the wood is seasoned. (Dried and treated in a natural way)
- The wood is churned to arrive at the desired shape.
- Further design enhancements are made.
- Colour is added to it by using lacquer. The widely used colours are green, red, black, brown, orange, yellow, violet and cream.
The government has provided a factory space and some machinery to the artists involved in this craft. The craftsmen pay a meager amount Rs.90 per month.
Following that I met the artisans at their homes. It was a sad scene to see the gutter passing by few houses. At the same it was shocking to meet a few rich artisans who were able market their goods confidently and create presence even in the export markets. Every artisan family gave me a warm welcome and was curious to show their creations. Each artist had his own domain expertise in manufacturing the wooden articles. Few made toys which were specific for the children to develop their neuron abilities, few had interesting accessories for young people, few catered for the home care segment and so on.
On the whole it was a wonderful experience!!!
Book Review: Stay Hungry Stay Foolish
August 10th, 2009
In the Indian entrepreneurial scenario, IIMs always play a strong role in connecting various groups in the entrepreneurial ecosytem. It sometimes builds a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their b-plans and sometimes organizes events for like minded people to meet, grow and establish as entrepreneurs.
Where is all this going to….it is leading to a book called “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish” written by Rashmi Bansal, an IIM-A alumni. She has taken time off and scripted this book with a lot of valuable inputs from different entrepreneurs (commanality is all the entrepreneurs belong to IIM-A alumni). It is a compendium of certainly 25 inspiring stories of entrepreneurs. It is not just their entrepreneurial journey but also what are their learnings out of it and what do they have to give as a lesson of the day for their fellow entrepreneurs. The layout is interesting and leaves a message behind for the reader.
Uh! this must be one of the articles on my blog which has the word “entrepreneur” repeated the maximum number of times. That is because the book is all about ENTREPRENEURSHIP.
I strongly recommend this book for people of all ages but, the most important thing they should have to read this book is “entrepreneurial spirit”.
Gaming Industry moving to retail mechanism
May 6th, 2009
Gaming industry is a matured sector in the developed economies but, what India have say about it.
Sector Overview:
The retail gaming industry is segregated into mom and pop outlets and large format outlets. Gaming, is a crucial sector in the entertainment industry sizing upto and $48 billion globally. Of this the console and PC gaming contribute to 50% of its size and this gives us an estimate of how big the retail gaming market will grow into.
What do the players say about it?
Tha major and prominent players in this sector in India are Zapak, 7seas, Games2win, et al.
Zapak, Reliance’s big entertainment online gaming arm has a positive feel about the growth of the sector. It has seen outstanding sales numbers in retail gaming through its gaming CDs. The number was about 200,000 units in 6 months. They are moving ahead by launcing 25 more titles.
7seas have also experienced a positive outcome out of the retail gaming sales. They agree with the idea that this industr provides quick returns in 6 to 12 months of time.
The related allies to this industry in India like the distributors of CDs and other publishers believe that this industry has a great growth potential in the coming years. Milestone Interactive which is one such distributor has an offering over 200 console games and about 60 titles in its portfolio. This industry has estimates of 20,000 console owners joining the community every month which would ripple down to lower price bands and more consumers.
Limitations:
With all the optimism this industry has a threat of piracy. Moreover, few players like Games2win have a sense that this is not all that lucrative as it looks as it needs huge capital (~$20 million) to sustain and pull up in this market.
Observation:
Retail gaming industry is going through a phase resembling the DVD rental market in India, though it has some more alarming factors to watch out for in the India economy like lack of computer education, low internet penetration and having crazy consumers as it is case for movies (DVD Rental).
