Sitting\nby the little rocking chair outside her little hut, the 20-year-old Chanda\nlooks at the toilet with tears dripping by her eyes. Only if she could have\ngotten it built earlier, would she have saved her daughter from a venomous\nsnake bite in the bushes. Chanda hails from the farming community in Madhya\nPradesh. Abandoned by her in-laws, her two children and she had nobody to\nresort to for their financial assistance. There were no toilets in the village\nas a result of which people defaecated in the open and that was how she lost\nher elder hope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just\nthen, in 2010, UNICEF and the Self-Employed Women\u2019s Association (SEWA) decided\nto enter into a partnership in order to pilot an unconditional cash transfer\nexperiment in the rural areas of the state of Madhya Pradesh. It gave a hint of\nthe goal to pursue basic income. Chanda along with many of her neighbors\nregistered for this basic income, the sole requirement being that they needed\nto open a bank account within three months of its launch. The transfers were\nmade with no conditions attached as to how they should be spent. Initially, in\nthe general pilot, each adult received 200 rupees a month and each child ra 100\nrupees. After one year, the amounts were raised to 300 and 150 rupees\nrespectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chanda\nand her female friends (365) outnumbered the men (117) in the village on the\nground of Financial Inclusion. 95.6% of the individuals had bank accounts\nwithin 4 months while for the remaining 4%, accounts were opened in the next 3\nmonths. Totally the basic income went to 5547 accounts in the 8 villages\ncovered by the general pilot experiment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nbasic living conditions improved considerably in the villages starting with the\nimprovement in the sanitation space. About 16% of the households including\nChanda\u2019s, constructed toilets at their homes with the help of the money\nreceived. Some of the basic income was utilized in order to get better access\nto drinking water especially in tribal villages. There were significant\nimprovements in private water sources in the tribal villages which were meant\nboth for household as well as for irrigation. Chanda now uses a better cooking\nfuel which creates a lesser volume of smoke in the house and thereby less\nintake of the harmful carbon monoxide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking\nat this lucrative yet achievable story, the idea of why the Government, for\nyears have postponed the idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) is indeed\nintriguing. The former term dates back to the 18th<\/sup> Century from\nwhich it gained momentum on account of increasing risks of social exclusion,\neconomic downturns and growing inequality. The Economic Survey of India,\nJanuary 31st<\/sup>, included a forty-page chapter that had Universality,\nUnconditionality and Agency as the three key components of the proposed\nprogramme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Universal\nBasic Income is a Guaranteed Income Model (GIM) for providing all citizens of a\nregion with a definite sum of money regardless of their income, resources or\nemployment status. According to the advocacy group Basic Income Earth Network\n(BIEN), the essential principle for providing UBI is to ensure that every\nindividual is entitled to a liveable income, regardless of whether they\ncontribute to production or not. There are two main types of GIM models, the\nUBI system and the Basic Income Guarantee Systems (BIG), however a third model\ncalled the Negative Income Tax also exists. While the former two are\nconcentrated on providing money directly to the individuals, the latter is\nfocused on individual tax returns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With\nabout 60% of the Indian Population involved in agricultural work and agrarian\ndistress being an omnipresent issue, it\u2019s high time for the Government to\nrecognize and deliver a means to the section of individuals that will curb\ninequality to a considerable extent. In the chapter dedicated to the same,\nformer Chief Economic Advisor, Dr. Arvind Subramanian, calculated the amount to\nRs. 7620 for 2016-17 based on the Tendulkar formula for poverty line. The\nsurvey had estimated that such a model would cost 4.9% of India\u2019s GDP in\ncomparison to the 5.2% of GDP spent on all 950 central sector and centrally\nsub-sponsored schemes. He also went on to propose a Quasi UBI targeting\nspecific demographic groups like women citizens to tackle the problem instead\nof a nationwide project on account of feasibility issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But\nwhat would be the positive gains if UBI was to be implemented in this country.\nReports suggest, implementation of UBI can bring down poverty from 22% to 16%.\nAdditionally, the problem of farming debts might be alleviated. The farmers can\nuse their income to invest in their side-business and also help tackle the huge\nissue of unemployment because people might not have to look for jobs they\naren\u2019t wholly satisfied with. It is normally visible that women emerge bigger\nvictims of poverty than men. A direct transfer of a significant amount into\ntheir bank accounts everyday will not only empower them financially but help\nthem invest in new business ventures where they foresee a long-term benefit.\nWith an extra guaranteed income for people already earning, they can focus into\nopening small businesses and further contribute to the Indian Manufacturing\nsector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Challenges\nnevertheless prevail, namely, feasibility issues, income disparity, increased\nlabour cost and inadequate cash transfer to name a few but looking at the sheer\nfailure of farm loan waivers, the Government can definitely give this bit of\nUBI a try. With about 60% of the Indian Population involved in agricultural work and agrarian distress being an omnipresent issue, it\u2019s high time for the Government to recognize and deliver a means to the section of individuals that will curb inequality to a considerable extent. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":10230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[122,3,92],"tags":[100,98,99],"class_list":["post-60765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-governance","category-indian-economy","category-social","tag-pradhan-mantri-kisan-samman-nidhi","tag-ubi","tag-universal-basic-income"],"yoast_head":"\n
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