Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

Mr. Narayana Murthy, My views

Posted : June 22, 2004 at 10:47 pm [IST]

Dear Mr. Murthy,

I have gone through your article “Get it Rolling” in Hindustan Times and I commend you on writing such a thoughtful article. However, I have slightly different opinions about a few of the things you mentioned in your article:

1. Hand over the school education to the local community: In a state like West Bengal (I do not know why they still call it ‘West’. There is only one Bengal) panchayats are totally controlled by political parties. The education system is getting spoiled by the party interference. All the primary school teachers are from the cadre of the ruling party. While they keep themselves busy in party work, they sublet teaching to some persons with questionable qualifications. All the aids coming to panchayats are preferably channeled to the families that vote for the party. Even the mid day meal contracts are given to the person of the party only. Should not the Panchayats and schools be out of political influence? But who will dare to raise the voice, where the party boss threatens the election observers-”The party workers will catch them by collars and take them to police station”? Moreover, in our system the state decides the course. Text books are produced by the states. A boy in Bihar is thus forced to read the life-story of Laloo or Rabri rather than the life-story of Rama or Gandhiji. How can you expect that this education build some good values in the children? Perhaps all the students in school must be made acquainted with lessons on hygiene, sanitation and housekeeping more than anything else.
2. National Market for the farmer: I shall like to add that with tractors and harvesters coming in, the employment in traditional crops has reduced and will be further reducing. Only those who go for intensive cultivation for fruits and vegetables remain employed for a good period in a year. More than 60% of the population in villages must get employed in nonagricultural work. It is possible only if every village has regular electricity power and also access to market through good roads. I think if the big retail grocer starts ordering the supply directly from farmers, the farmers may get a better earning. Today, there are many intermediaries between the end users and the farmers. As someone told me there are sometimes four to six intermediaries in present system. These intermediaries hardly add any value to the commodity and in some cases such as fruits and vegetables they even cause more damage. The consumers are paying say Rs20 for a kg of rice, but the farmer hardly gets Rs.6 for the same. In case of vegetables and fruits, it is much less, may be one fourth or one fifth. The retailers may involve farmers for contract farming. They can further train the farmers in sorting for quality and low cost packing, etc. so that they get the produce in ready-to-hand-over-to-the-end-users condition and in turn the farmers get employment and better returns. This way the farming can create more employment. The idea is to give more money to the farmers who produce rather than intermediaries.

   Another way will be the outsourcing of certain work by manufacturers that are based in cities and towns to village folks. Work such as knitting of sweaters, cardigans, etc or even apparel stitching can easily be done by the women and girls of the villages at much cheaper cost for the manufacturers. With some amount of training, this model of business can be developed. That will be beneficial to both the parties. The work being done presently in cities can be pushed to villages. For other handiworks and produce from these women and other craftsmen, an open exhibition market can be created in near-by towns where the marketing groups may also join. The village women folks can exhibit their works and the marketing people can provide information about the thing that they can sell. It will lead to useful employment for the rural population.

3. Legal process is slow: It has been built up in system as a legacy as there is no accountability. A thousand reasons can be put forward in favour of their way of doing the things. Moreover, the generation of the legal cases should be reduced by strengthening the local institutions. The thrust should be on reducing the number of cases by solving at the root level where they originate. Today, we find huge lot of advocates like bees around the clients near any court. They go on instigating and alluring people to bring their legal cases to them so that they can have some earning. Admissions to the legal degrees must be limited. It should not be an enclave for all the students from humanities stream to get a professional degree of law and practice. Moreover, the unit of measure of pending cases should not be the judges per capita but the number of legal cases per judge. The judges can certainly improve their productivity, more so with computers.
   

I wish that your suggestions are given the due considerations in the interest of the country by the FM.

- Indra

Category: Government Policy/Administration |