Little do we realize that development is a difficult paradigm. There are no straight-forward answers. You cannot adopt a business-like textbook approach to development.
I read a recent piece by P. Sainath, in the Hindu, about giving cows to poor farmers in the Vidharba region. These cows each costing Rs 17,500 are provided at a subsidized price. The high-yielding cows unfortunately eat a lot, sometimes feeding it for a day costs as much as Rs. 200. While the milk it provides, brings in an income of just Rs. 50 a day.
I read a recent piece by P. Sainath, in the Hindu, about giving cows to poor farmers in the Vidharba region. These cows each costing Rs 17,500 are provided at a subsidized price. The high-yielding cows unfortunately eat a lot, sometimes feeding it for a day costs as much as Rs. 200. While the milk it provides, brings in an income of just Rs. 50 a day.
"I'm a poor farmer. I cant even make my living and my friends are busy killing themselves. I think about it sometimes. And then one day this government official/consultant comes in and says he has the solution. Then comes the cow, which eats more than my whole family and doesn't even bring me a decent income to break-even, leave alone profits. Do you think I'm foolish?"Well, sorry poor guy, thats exactly what we think.
5 comments:
Getting out of poverty is no joke...however i think subsidies are not the right way to go abt it..maybe subsidies are essential in terms of providing basic essentials for survival but subsidies as means of providing means of livelihood is i think a rong way to go abt things..if u think India would have been better off if not for liberaliazation and privatization..then i think u are living in a fool's paradise....thats again my opinion....
Hey you! how was new year's eve? Happy 2007! There's an article by Joseph stiglitz called What I learnt about the world economic crisis...(or something on those lines :))if i remember the name right... you might find it interesting!!
Err... selling soap is more important than people isn't it?
Sorry to hijack a relevant comments page.
I've been reading more and more about these books and thought you might be interested.
In case you aren't interested you can still buy a copy and pass it on to me (and redeem yourselves for all the book-thefts and other destructive things you've done to my books in the past)
P.S.
What sort of a blogging platform do you use? Is it straight from 1985? This is the fourth time I'm typing this comment.
//Unfortunately, you are NOT consulting to sell more bars of soap, you are dealing with entities that are a little more valuable - people!//
Well said! :)
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