Daily, while returning from office, I see some children or some elderly person or some underprivileged fellow on Bangalore roads, trying hard to earn their livelihood through begging. Some of them are capable enough to earn but most of them are really underprivileged and cursed to do the activity. On the other hand, it is the same city where you will not get a movie ticket of INR 1000/- (!!!!!) on weekends. Two extremes of life....and these extremes are persistent everywhere in India. The great Indian Development Story is going on and it has pushed many from Lower Middle Class to Upper Middle Class.......sounds good and it's true. Many are reaping the fruits of booming share market, high IT and Management salaries, increasing organized retail chains....but.....a big pause is after this. Most of the development effected only to educated middle class. Some low profile jobs have also been created but they are really not enough to combat with increasing inflation. Gap between rich and poor is still widening. Wealth is being generated but still not being shared or invested through proper channels. The money, which goes to inflated school fees or inflated movie tickets, does not add to nations growth or wealth sharing. The rise in school fees and grain prices has been steeper than the rise in salaries and it is again widening gap between rich and poor. Access of quality education to lower middle and middle class is still a dream. It is education only, which has added most to Great Indian Development Saga, but it gradually getting inaccessible now to lower middle class. Without quality education, it would be very difficult to continue this development story.
The next point of concern is decreasing trend to accept agriculture as profession. With increasing grain and vegetable prices, the highly paid executives are also looking their salary as meager one. With decreasing agricultural land, this trend is only going to be stronger and stronger. Agriculture sector is still seeing not more than 3% rise whereas Service Sector increasing faster compare to this. This trend is alarming. Having best agriculture land in form of Ganges Plane, the decrement of agriculture is only adding to our woes. Service Sector growth is a dependent growth; whereas Agriculture growth will create an independence. We must pay attention to agriculture otherwise in this globalized era, we will become more dependent only. We are still dependent on Monsoon for our agriculture, which is getting more and more unpredictable; courtesy to global warming.
Clearly, somewhere we are lacking in vision of wealth sharing and adding to future growth. I don't think that it is justifiable to spend 1000/- Rs. to watch a movie in a country which still has more than 42% population below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day.
Let me make it clear that I am not advocating communism here; because somewhere down the line, it discourages wealth creator to create wealth due to fear of sharing it with non-eligible persons. It would be a better idea to self realize the importance of money and where it should be invested (not spend). Money is getting costlier day by day and with decreasing value of 100/- Rs. note, we have to think, what economy we are going to give to our coming generations. Because it is quite possible that they won't see a 200% rise in their salaries but the same rise (or even more) is quite likely in education, food prices, medical facilities and energy sources. It is high time when we should behave more responsibly in spending. As a developing nation, we have a better role model in form of USA, which slipped into Great Depression and Great Recession only because of irresponsible spending. Please keep in mind that USA has no hostile neighbor (except Cuba, which virtually presents no threat now) and India has to deal with China and Pakistan both.
