07-25-2005, 08:06 AM
Came back after a trip to India. Visited only my home town and Chennai.
What I noticed this time is the amount of economic potential India has in terms of internal commercial activity. I visited Reliance Infocomm office in my small home town (mainly to return the phone we had) and found atleast 2 people bought new phones while I was waiting. When I went to Nokia showroom couple of times atleast two people talking about buying a new phone. When I went to visit doctors there were atleast 6 people waiting to see the doctor in the queue at any time during my 15 minute wait (calculate howmuch money he made if he charged cheap Rs. 50/- per patient). Number of courier services present are too many. Number of vehicles on the road are choking and I'm sure they need more quality workshops. Banks are flooded with cash and they are willing give you loans much easily (now they resort to collection agencies - legalized goondas - to recover bad loans). Most of people at private businesses are young people <!--emo&:ind--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/india.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='india.gif' /><!--endemo--> . Most important change I see is the reduction in number of beggars. Earlier I had seen around 2-3 beggars per day visiting our home, but this time I could see only 3-4 beggars per week. I didn't see many people begging on the streets either. These are descriptions of the small town with 3-4 lakh population in Kerala.
What I see is the amount of economic opportunity it provides to the people who are willing to do real business. Unfortunately not many people are not capitalizing on this. One thing we all can do is to encourage people to become entrepreneurs, like most of Gujaratis. Motivate people to do some entreprise/business of their own. Talk to lower level people (say your milkman, dhoby or even maid) about how he can improve his/her business to make more money. Most of them are not well educated and if you spend half an hour to understand how he/she runs the business, most of us can suggest hundreds of ideas how he can improve the way he/she does things. Tell him the basic things on how he can avoid getting into debt trap, how to avoid risks, how he should see the opportunities present in front of him. Also about his social obligations. Sad part I had seen is that when some of the lower level people start making money, they end up spending most of the money they earn on luxury items (like branded food items etc.), without any concern about their own future or to save when they become old. If a lower level person start making money he/she would certainly send kids to better school and he in turn would be contributing for the nation.
I had an opportunity to talk to a barber who was only 17 years old but a school dropout after 10th. He wants to make it bigger business but literally lacked the guts required for it. Looks like he got motivated so that he would go and do special courses of hair care or male beautician courses after which he should be able to start a some what middle level airconditioned barber shop.
Just like Gujarat, we need to turn entire India into an entreprising community.
What I noticed this time is the amount of economic potential India has in terms of internal commercial activity. I visited Reliance Infocomm office in my small home town (mainly to return the phone we had) and found atleast 2 people bought new phones while I was waiting. When I went to Nokia showroom couple of times atleast two people talking about buying a new phone. When I went to visit doctors there were atleast 6 people waiting to see the doctor in the queue at any time during my 15 minute wait (calculate howmuch money he made if he charged cheap Rs. 50/- per patient). Number of courier services present are too many. Number of vehicles on the road are choking and I'm sure they need more quality workshops. Banks are flooded with cash and they are willing give you loans much easily (now they resort to collection agencies - legalized goondas - to recover bad loans). Most of people at private businesses are young people <!--emo&:ind--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/india.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='india.gif' /><!--endemo--> . Most important change I see is the reduction in number of beggars. Earlier I had seen around 2-3 beggars per day visiting our home, but this time I could see only 3-4 beggars per week. I didn't see many people begging on the streets either. These are descriptions of the small town with 3-4 lakh population in Kerala.
What I see is the amount of economic opportunity it provides to the people who are willing to do real business. Unfortunately not many people are not capitalizing on this. One thing we all can do is to encourage people to become entrepreneurs, like most of Gujaratis. Motivate people to do some entreprise/business of their own. Talk to lower level people (say your milkman, dhoby or even maid) about how he can improve his/her business to make more money. Most of them are not well educated and if you spend half an hour to understand how he/she runs the business, most of us can suggest hundreds of ideas how he can improve the way he/she does things. Tell him the basic things on how he can avoid getting into debt trap, how to avoid risks, how he should see the opportunities present in front of him. Also about his social obligations. Sad part I had seen is that when some of the lower level people start making money, they end up spending most of the money they earn on luxury items (like branded food items etc.), without any concern about their own future or to save when they become old. If a lower level person start making money he/she would certainly send kids to better school and he in turn would be contributing for the nation.
I had an opportunity to talk to a barber who was only 17 years old but a school dropout after 10th. He wants to make it bigger business but literally lacked the guts required for it. Looks like he got motivated so that he would go and do special courses of hair care or male beautician courses after which he should be able to start a some what middle level airconditioned barber shop.
Just like Gujarat, we need to turn entire India into an entreprising community.