The dynamics of promoting entrepreneurship among the rural poor

Before digging in to the subject I must say that this is my first blog and I am writing this to share some of my experiences and learning in the field. The views expressed here are my personal opinions drawn from my own observations. I am in the process of learning, and i am always open to questions pertaining to the ideas or views expressed in this blog.

This blog post is the first part of the series of posts I would like to write on ‘the dynamics of promoting entrepreneurship among the rural poor’. This part basically explains ‘the need for promoting entrepreneurship among the rural poor’.

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As most of us must be aware of the famous Chinese axiom ‘’Give a man a fish, and you have fed him once. Teach him how to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime”, to extend it further, ‘Teach him how to make a business out of the extra fish that he catches everyday and you have improved his standard of living’ (assuming that he uses his earnings for the right purpose). To put in simple words this art of generating wealth out of the existing opportunity using available resources is what we call as entrepreneurship.

What is entrepreneurship: defining entrepreneurship is not an easy task as there are numerous definitions provided by various scholars based on the different contexts. Hence to choose a definition appropriate to rural context, we need to think of entrepreneurial skills that will be needed to improve the quality of life of individuals and communities and to sustain a healthy economy and environment. Hence “Entrepreneurship is the process of creating value by pulling together a unique package of resources to exploit an opportunity.” 1 

The need for promoting entrepreneurship among rural poor:

Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger is one of the important millennium development goals. Countries all over the world are implementing several programs to achieve this and India with a vast BPL population has a long track of policies to combat extreme poverty and hunger. These policies over last 50 years have taken various shifts from providing direct food subsidies, providing rural employment opportunities to promoting rural entrepreneurship.

As mentioned in the Chinese poem charity has its limits i.e. providing food subsidies is only a temporary solution and it is not sustainable in the long run keeping in mind the alarming economic situation. Also for an average rural family the food subsidy is not sufficient and hence they need to struggle for the remaining food. Hence governments have moved a step ahead towards providing employment in the rural areas i.e. teaching fishing.

This policy of creating rural employment sponsored by the government came as a game changer and helped many people in earning their bread. But it has its limits i.e. it has only provided limited employment which is not sufficient for a family to live a decent life. Keeping in mind the ever growing population and dwindling public finance, this policy alone may not help in improving the standard of living of rural people. Hence governments have moved a step further towards promoting rural entrepreneurship.

Promotion of rural entrepreneurship generates local jobs and adds value to the rural economy by reducing the stress on the government sponsored employment. Sustainable entrepreneurial activities ensure regular employment to the people and hence facilitates in improving their standard of living. But the challenge lies in promoting entrepreneurship in rural areas.

To summarize, poverty is multi dimensional and hence need a multi pronged approach.  All the three government initiatives mentioned above have contributed to reduce economic poverty. Though one approach may be better than the other but in reality all the three approaches are necessary depending on the context and level of poverty of the individuals. 

Graam Sabha and Accountability

Using Graam Sabha for evaluating performance of government schemes and field functionaries can serve as an excellent social accountability mechanism which can lead to better service delivery.

Before getting into the topic, I want to inform to readers that this my first blog post. As a person who really hates writing, it is a big ask to write blog posts. But somehow I have rolled up my sleeves want to take up the task of writing and this motivation does not come from within (to speak frankly) but through the encouragement of my colleagues. I want to thank each and every one of them who inspired me, through their writings, and motivated me to write.

When I was thinking what to write lot of topics came over to my mind but I thought I could write about my recent field visit to Chinabonala village in Karimnagar district to attend a Graam Sabha (GS). The objective of this GS is to broadly assess the performance of government schemes in terms of their implementation and also to improve the awareness regarding various village functionaries and their respective functions.

It was a pilot experiment did by Karimnagar district administration as per the instructions of state government and it was named as Prajavedika.

The Process:

1.      A GramSabha was organized with prior intimation about the objective of meeting

2.      All the village level functionaries, who are divided into various groups like welfare, human development etc, will be present.

3.      Each of them should explain their roles and responsibilities and their performance in language understood by the villagers. For example, a Field Assistant in MGNREGA, should explain them no.of job cards in the villages, no.of days of work provided, average wage rate etc

4.      Later people feedback will be taken on the performance indices of each and every official and necessary steps will be taken to improve the performance of the official and delivery.

In short it is a performance audit of various schemes and functionaries by the Graam Sabha.

Accountability is broadly defined as an obligation of those holding power to take responsibility for their behavior and actions with the ultimate objective of improving service delivery to the citizens who have given them their mandate.¹ As accountability is one of the crucial factors for good governance and effective service delivery upholding the same is very important.

The performance of the field functionaries, in fact most of the officials, is evaluated only quantitative basis and the authenticity of the same is also sometimes questionable. But when it comes to some qualitative aspects like behavior of the official, discrimination by official, response time etc are not evaluated in the regular performance metrics or annual appraisal of an officer. But platforms like Graamsabha will not only authenticate the quantitative aspect but also qualitative part of the performance. Even though there is a large scope of improving the accountability, there are some short comings of the above process. People are not opening up against some departments like revenue and police with a fear of later consequences. People are feeling difficult to understand the performance of indices of the officials as the latter are mostly using official language. The whole activity is time taking because of which because of which people are losing interest and started moving out. The major challenge is people participation in the GS which a huge challenge right from its inception. But this can be addressed if this activity offers some value to the people.

Overall the whole exercise proved to be successful in which people get to know about various government schemes and the functions of various officials. This will not only increase awareness but also help in clearing any gaps existing in terms of delivery. By correcting short comings the whole process can serve as an excellent Social accountability mechanism which ultimately results in effective service delivery.