Singha wrote:just as 100s of millions abandoned cheen's interior for the gold coast, "vast legions" from the east and north are also on the move here , to the west and south. I think the four southern states have a lack of population vs available jobs and these "legions" are filling the gaps.
even bangladeshis have got on the "go to blr" bandwagon and agents exist who can provide harvest or cultivation season labour to large farms and spice/coffee/tea plantations in the south. was told so by a plantation owner in madikeri.
in andhra near tirupati my colleague was saying its also hard to get casual daily wage farm labour - he is trying to cultivate mango in family land - he said if he pays 500 AND provides chicken biryani and daaru after work, then people will consider else not.
hence I would say despite the 'social issues' of assimilation / periodic contests for jobs, these vast legions are helping to keep the cost of business low in many sectors.
This kind of thing can be at best a temporary safety valve / survival thing. However, what REALLY needs to happen is that economic activity in the North & East has to be kick started. It is dead at present. In the long run, only productivity growth will create wealth. This filling of "low cost/casual jobs" are things that will be replaced by productivity improvements in a normal situation. Shipping huge loads of people to be maids, farm hands , unskilled labor etc, really doesnt do anything in the long run.
It is a shame really. The North and East lack
NOTHING . There is ample, land, water, resources, labor (skilled and otherwise) and everything. It can literally change the fortunes of India if what happened in the West and South happens in the North & East as well. The numbers we are seeing of India's indices is dragged down by the underperforming North and East. A different trajectory in those states will see a massive improvement of India's GDP and social indices numbers. What North & East have in addition to it's abundant blessings is the curse in abundance of terrible politics as well. UP & Bihar and Bengal are absolute disaster zones. The commies basically put the lights out in Bengal and Mamta has nailed the coffin and buried it. There can be no economic turn around in Bengal and without Bengal, Eastern India is doomed. These places desperately need better governance and a business and investment climate. Atleast UP and Bihar have some hope of a turnaround if the current govts are thrown out. Bengal is a no hope area.
Pity . For e.g., we have a sofa-bed /futon that we bought close to a decade ago from Style Spa close to a decade ago and was now upholstery in tatters. I suggested SHQ to put it up for sale in OLX. SHQ checked the price of it as new and she decided she will get the upholstery redone. New one would have cost Rs 35000, OLX, we would have got 2000, re upholstering around Rs 8000 material + Rs 4000 labour. We got a tailor recommended by Style Spa come in, he took the old one with him, got a new one done in it's place with the material we gave and put it back on within 3 days. No mess, no working at home etc. He did an impeccable job with the stitching and fitting and had all the special needles and the stapling guns and everything to put it back in place. Stunning quality and it looks like it is out of a factory and freshly unpacked. The tailor and his helper were from Bihar. He did such a skilled job. Ideally guys like them should be working in a factory or subcontracting to a large scale guy doing good stuff.
WE should have been the factory of the world and NOT China. If not for the idiocy of the license permit raj and the "export pessimism " and the autarky of the ISI/DSE ding dongs of Mahlanobis and his Nehruvian ilk followed by the disastrous policies of Indira Gandhi, if we had been export oriented and let our people's natural skills flower, we would be far ahead of where China is today in terms of Global trade and economy and we would have been a 2nd world nation. It will take another 50 years from today, it is still possible. But for that India to the east of the line connecting Kanpur to Vizag should see a huge governance and attitude turnaround.
. It was only at around 0700Hrs that the train actually entered the KCG platform.
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