The way government has tried addressing these issues of lack of development, and general poverty and illiteracy is by launching big ticket schemes, like MGNREGA, Sarv Siksha Abhiyaan, Mid day meals at school, etc which look nice in their manifestoes but are in effect poor returns for the taxpayers money that is spent on it. The question which I want to ask is that can we have a model of growth in which government instead of acting as the actual implementor instead acts as a facilitator for social enterprises to take on the tasks of development and building infrastructures. Can startups in the social and development sector prove to be the machine which we so desperately need to convert taxpayers hard earned money into tangible social outputs? I know of a few startups doing wonderful work in the sector. Nachiket Mor's Sugha Vazhvu Healthcare, Gerard Rego's Vayugrid, Ram NK's RangDe are just a few of them. Can we have a startup ecosystem for such enterprises, on the same model as we have for Internet startups in Silicon Valley? Well, a thought worth pondering over in my opinion.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Development Sector: Can startups be an answer?
Can startups bring about the requisite changes in India's developmental patterns and foster a sustainable growth? This is a question which I have been pondering for long and I think needs a bit of our deliberation. Its evident that there is a disparity in India's growth story. While on one hand there are people, living in cities who are decently well off, enjoying all the necessities of life, there are these other set of people living in rural India and urban slums whose living conditions are miserable to say the least. Even in not so poor blocks and villages there is hardly any organised growth present, and most of the development is just unplanned and uninformed. There is hardly any basic infrastructure present, there are power cuts some 8-10 times a day without any regular timings, roads become alll muddy and unusable even with a light shower of rain, and people throw garbage and outlet their drains anywhere they want to. And this is the plight of a block in Jharkhand(Baliapur), where I live, which is not so worse of in terms of economic earnings of people here. I wonder what is the situation in villages of Orissa and Andhra, where people hardly have any means of earning their livelihood. No wonder they rise in protests as Naxalites and anti-government miscreants.
The way government has tried addressing these issues of lack of development, and general poverty and illiteracy is by launching big ticket schemes, like MGNREGA, Sarv Siksha Abhiyaan, Mid day meals at school, etc which look nice in their manifestoes but are in effect poor returns for the taxpayers money that is spent on it. The question which I want to ask is that can we have a model of growth in which government instead of acting as the actual implementor instead acts as a facilitator for social enterprises to take on the tasks of development and building infrastructures. Can startups in the social and development sector prove to be the machine which we so desperately need to convert taxpayers hard earned money into tangible social outputs? I know of a few startups doing wonderful work in the sector. Nachiket Mor's Sugha Vazhvu Healthcare, Gerard Rego's Vayugrid, Ram NK's RangDe are just a few of them. Can we have a startup ecosystem for such enterprises, on the same model as we have for Internet startups in Silicon Valley? Well, a thought worth pondering over in my opinion.
The way government has tried addressing these issues of lack of development, and general poverty and illiteracy is by launching big ticket schemes, like MGNREGA, Sarv Siksha Abhiyaan, Mid day meals at school, etc which look nice in their manifestoes but are in effect poor returns for the taxpayers money that is spent on it. The question which I want to ask is that can we have a model of growth in which government instead of acting as the actual implementor instead acts as a facilitator for social enterprises to take on the tasks of development and building infrastructures. Can startups in the social and development sector prove to be the machine which we so desperately need to convert taxpayers hard earned money into tangible social outputs? I know of a few startups doing wonderful work in the sector. Nachiket Mor's Sugha Vazhvu Healthcare, Gerard Rego's Vayugrid, Ram NK's RangDe are just a few of them. Can we have a startup ecosystem for such enterprises, on the same model as we have for Internet startups in Silicon Valley? Well, a thought worth pondering over in my opinion.
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