Modi’s LPG reform was different. It helped the poor immediately, no trickle-down timeline
Policy Perspective

Modi’s LPG reform was different. It helped the poor immediately, no trickle-down timeline

As we celebrate India’s 1991 economic reforms, it is also important to know the success stories of recent campaigns. None stand out like LPG. Representational image | LPG cylinders | Bloomberg In 2014, to get a gas connection for my domestic worker, I needed to go all the way to the chairperson of a PSU oil company and ask for a special dispensation because the beneficiary was from a lower income group and lived in a chawl in Mumbai with no rent agreement or proof of residence. “It’s a subsidised commodity so we can’t change the rules,” was the reason the oil company gave us for being so hidebound on KYC documents for address proof. She needed LPG, not just for convenience, but for earning more. She needed it to make chapatis for her entire family’s lunch dabbas and then show up for work on time before her office-going women […]

July 17, 2021 0 Comments
Growth in income in last three decades: How consumer trends evolved in India
Policy Perspective

Growth in income in last three decades: How consumer trends evolved in India

The fact is that pragmatic consumption remains the hallmark of most of Consumer India’s spending.(AP Photo for Representation) With income growth in the last thirty years and more supply at various price points, and better access to credit, there are a whole class of “have-somes” who are consuming now. The last three decades have brought consumption front and centre into Indian lives, irrespective of age or income. The major life focus of all Indians is to strive to earn more and save more in order to buy a better quality of life for themselves and their family. The tenet that consumption is wasteful and best done in moderation has been replaced by “it’s OK to want it, now let’s see how we can afford it”. What hasn’t changed, though, is belief that the Almighty needs to lend a hand too. The PayTM sign at the Kedarnath temple high up in […]

July 13, 2021 0 Comments
PM Modi must push for a self-confident Bharat, not a self-reliant one
Policy Perspective

PM Modi must push for a self-confident Bharat, not a self-reliant one

PM Modi should use his considerable pivoting skills and turn Atmanirbhar to Atma Vishwasi Bharat (AVB) or self-confident Bharat. The Prime Minister usually hits bull’s eye with the branding and messaging of his ideas. But he has had a miss with “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, stepping into the culturally loaded minefield of “self-reliance” —a noble word turned ignoble after 1991. Instead, he should have given a clarion call for “Atma Vishwasi Bharat”. His colleagues and acolytes would not have had such a hard time, splitting hairs, reinterpreting Atmanirbhar to mean self-sufficiency not self-reliance and arguing that the old xenophobic meaning of the word is consistent with the idea of globalisation. He should use his considerable pivoting skills and turn Atmanirbhar to Atma Vishwasi Bharat (AVB) or self-confident Bharat. Signalling “yes we can” will work well with those sections of society eager to claw their way up the social status and income ladder […]

January 20, 2021 0 Comments
‘Migrant’ has become a label that declares someone a perpetual outsider
Policy Perspective

‘Migrant’ has become a label that declares someone a perpetual outsider

The creation of a new class called the migrants makes us forget that they are people and all rules that apply to people, apply to them as well. Many ask, “Why are the migrants leaving? Why can’t they be persuaded to stay? Surely, they would stay if food was actually being provided?” and so on. Passengers wait for their train at New Delhi Railway Station. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, “migrant” and “migration” were emotionally-neutral words used to describe Indians who have moved their residence from one part of the country to another, temporarily or permanently. Now, with due respect to the media and to the wise people who speak on behalf of them, the word “migrant” has acquired an emotional charge, value judgement and social stereotyping, and a new slice of society called “the migrants” has been consecrated. “The migrants” is now shorthand for a people who are poor, homeless, hungry, neglected […]

June 5, 2020 0 Comments
Wider cost-benefit analysis will determine if WFH is a success
Policy Perspective

Wider cost-benefit analysis will determine if WFH is a success

The current narrative around WFH does not accommodate diverse income groups and women workers. The bandwagon of opinion that work-from-home is the amrit (nectar of immortality) that the covid manthan (churning) has yielded is growing and speeding down an implementation path that is long on profit-and-loss benefit and short on people-centricity. Corporates love the cost savings, but a fuller analysis will show that it is a double-edged sword to be handled with care, quickly accruing quantifiable savings for companies, but risking slowly accumulating costs for employees and organizations, perhaps not quantifiable early on but not un-measurable. Implement work from home (WFH) by all means, but after data-driven weighing of costs and benefits all around. We would like to see an equivalent level of discussion on the people dimension as we are seeing on cost savings. Decision-makers, likely older, with older children, better paid, hence living in larger houses with better […]

May 4, 2020 0 Comments
Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid
Policy Perspective

Only half of India’s household consumption will come through post covid

The so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure. India’s household consumer demand is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most Low food inflation and protection of urban salaried jobs may make it better, a spoilt agricultural season may make it worse The ongoing discussion on the prognosis for consumer demand is currently based on extrapolations from supply-side data and macro-economic variables. This column aims to supplement it by providing household-level data on consumption, a “people-view” of those who cause this demand to happen. India’s household consumer demand, the jewel in its gross domestic product (GDP) crown, is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most; and because most Indian households have very little “surplus income”, money remaining after covering their routine expenditure, leave alone their […]

April 20, 2020 0 Comments
Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households
Policy Perspective

Loss of income; ground-up assessment of recovery support to households

Based on household-level data on occupation and income, a calculation for helping citizens get to their feet A labourer carries vegetables in sacks at a vegetables market during the nationwide lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the COVID-19, in Chennai, Monday, April 6, 2020. (PTI Photo) This column offers a ‘people view’ — household-level data — of Indian households to feed into the ongoing macro-level discussion about the right level of financial support needed to help citizens get to their feet following the loss of income caused by the lockdown, and where it should be deployed.. Presented here is a ground-up calculation based on what categories of jobs and job arrangements mainly contribute to the income of households, and what that actual income level is. Macro-level discussions are based on a broadbrush understanding of occupation — large swathes of informality, agriculture dependence and migrants. We base our assessment on […]

April 12, 2020 0 Comments
The brands of politics
Policy Perspective

The brands of politics

If brand-speak represents popular culture, we have less to worry about than some of us might think. Image credit: Siddhant Jumde The good news is that Indian brands unequivocally live in the world of customers and the people of India, and not in the world of politicians. They speak to people, mindful of commercial good sense, by tapping into popular culture; adding to the good news is that they still see popular culture as being quite far removed from the patriotic jingoism of today’s politics. Every Independence Day and Republic Day, brands in India do special campaigns—citizen brands talking to citizen consumers—and the conversation is quite revealing of the way business thinks about the state of the nation. We haven’t yet seen what the brand-speak for Independence Day 2019 will be, but it is a very safe bet, based on recent trends, that most will neither echo nor argue against […]

August 19, 2019 0 Comments
First, let there be investment
Policy Perspective

First, let there be investment

Budget does well to focus on investment and infrastructure rather than propping up consumption to boost the economy. There are few takers for the notion, despite data, that for most of consumer India, unless incomes grow there is no way consumption can or should grow. (Illustration by Suvajit Dey) The 2019 Economic Survey’s focus on investment as a key driver of economic growth is very welcome. It changes the alarming paradigm that business and media have been working with — since investment is not happening, in order to bolster slowing economic growth the focus of policymaking should shift to boosting consumption, with cash transfers, reduced excise duties, decreased interest rates on retail loans and so on. Why investment has slowed down and how to revive it has not received even a fraction of the public attention that consumption has. There are few takers for the notion, despite data, that for most of […]

July 12, 2019 0 Comments
Limits of handout politics
Policy Perspective

Limits of handout politics

Congress may be talking to economists and experts. But is it listening to the voter? Written by Rama Bijapurkar, Rajesh Shukla Bijapurkar is the author of We Are Like That Only and A Never-before World: Tracking the evolution of Consumer India. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s plan for a “surgical strike on poverty” is built around some key numbers: Rs 12,000, the target minimum monthly income for a household; 5 crore households (amounting to 20 per cent of all Indian households); Rs 6,000, their average monthly earning; and, therefore, Rs 6,000, the monthly amount required to be transferred to each. Since his political and financial calculations hinge around these numbers, a fact check is useful, more so because neither he nor the eminent people he consulted have told us where these numbers came from. Official government surveys measure household expenditure, not income. Hardly any robust household income study […]

April 1, 2019 0 Comments
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