JOIN USWomen in rural households have become entrepreneurs and are a source of income
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Non-farm employment in rural areas has a crucial and preferred role in India’s development all along. Urbanisation has generally been held as the engine of development. But, as the experience of urban misery has accumulated and diversified, we have come to consider putting urban elements in rural economies and society as more important than making the traditional cities grow further. This is otherwise called provision of urban facilities in rural areas—PURA.
During the recent 10-15 years, many developments have made rural life, employment, incomes and economy witness a sea change. All these are perhaps solely driven by MNREGS and a huge development of rural roads and spread of cell phones all Incomes and demand for labour have increased in rural areas as a result of MNREGS (it is estimated that annually 2.3 billion person days of work are created under this scheme) and also of steadily increasing support prices for grain; not a little of this is due to the government policy of linking these wages to the ever increasing cost of living index.
In a related development, India is urging at the G33 and WTO an acceptance of the proposal to link farm procurement prices with inflation index. Regarding farm incomes, sample these data: In Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh the plough men respectively get wages in rupees as 588, 341, 162 and 147—recent reports. In other states too these wages are comparably increasing. According to Ashok Gulati, the Chairman of the Agricultural Costs and Prices Commission, rural wages have been growing at the rate of 18 per cent per annum during the past 5 years.
Rising cost
In response to this rising cost of agriculture, the support prices for paddy have been raised from Rs 530 per quintal in 2002-03 to Rs 1,285 in 2012-13. All these go to show that incomes in villages and correspondingly demand have been rising generally.
High value foods and other packaged and sachet items are witnessing high demand in villages; this has resulted in an increase of demand for manufactures—urban activities are increasingly contributing to sustain rural life.
Coming to roads in the country, the celebrated golden quadrilateral has been completed adding a great deal of thrust to development along these high ways. The development works along the Mumbai-New Delhi industrial corridor and the nearby satellite towns are a corollary to this development. Adding to this is the addition of 400,000 Kms of all weather rural roads during the last 12 years and these have connected 88,000 new rural habitations.
Complementarily, there is continuous increase in commercial vehicle population, including mini-lorries and cargo auto-rickshaws adding to employment and demand for rural produce.
Aiding this development, there is 12 per cent increase in households having access to electricity; the number of households without electricity has come down from 45 per cet to 33 per cent.
This has made rural labour more productive and significant. Even during nights they can produce to cater to neighbouring markets—milk, milk products, eggs, poultry, condiments, sweets and savouries etc. Women in rural households have thus become entrepreneurs or employed and are a source of income, facilitating longer years for youth in schools and other skill imparting institutions like the ITIs and polytechnics. A sort of unshackling of women’s energies and resources is afoot.
The thrust of the argument is rural incomes are attaining a steadier state or manner; not a one off type as in the case of one or two harvest seasons if agriculture alone is relied upon. With steadier incomes, purchasing power also is steadier and all along rural clusters, more shops have come into being, millions of them, and employment of a different type has emerged. Shops and ware houses under public and private aegis along with residential housing with cement floors and walls are getting constructed entailing a lot of jobs in the construction and allied sectors—plumbing, electricity, lavatories, painting, carpentry etc.
These rural houses with cement construction have witnessed an annual growth of 8% during these 10 years or so; complementarily work and wages in brick kilns and stone quarries also have increased.
In India, 30 per cent of the workers are estimated to be casual labourers. Their access to employers, employment and wage bargaining is vastly facilitated by the cell phone; the labour, the very important component of the economy are thus provided with access to information about wage rates. And rates and happening of wage increases get readily transmitted between sectors, between different rural and urban neighbourhoods. So, increases in tele-density are an instrument for bringing about equalisation of wage rates.