In the economic discourse of our times I have seen normative references to employment as a fundamental value driver for the economic progress, some have referred to Okun’s Law, some to Philips Curve, some have taken refuge in the empirical relationship that if growth is to be sustained those in work cannot feed those who are not in work beyond a threshold, which extrapolated over the entire society have sometimes driven many to the debate that the working population must earn more to take care of the liabilities that society carries for the previous generation, who cannot rely on the paltry pension given the inflation scenario; I have rarely seen the discussion moving to the quality of employment, or to the value of employment to the society seen from the standpoint that such an activity in the least should bring in prosperity to the very individual family who engages in such an activity. This small write-up of mine captures some of the extreme situations that poverty leads to in India:



"The winding road outside our premises will take us to small heaps of earth, concrete, mix of materials and garbage left to the scavengers, who come from a remote village in Chattisgarh and the local tribe of Kharias join them. They are all women and children, who have been ‘gainfully’ employed to pick up the smallest pieces of aluminum dust, coalescence of solidified waste from the floors and concrete, which could have some material value still left in it and for each small shining element of discovery from these heaps the competition mounts, as gains and losses are mutually exclusive. Their clothes are black with soot, their faces resemble a miner with long hours of agony in darkness and their pallor mounts with the scorching rays of the sun beaming on them. After a hard day’s work they get back to get their only piece of meal, which is offered in a polythene packet, boiled rice, that is cold and there is water in it, so that they do not have to look for any other. I have never seen them eating anything else other than only rice.

The economics of their labor pays a lasting tribute to the preponderance of poverty as I estimate that their daily collection of one kilo of aluminum (Rs.120/kg) scavenged from the dust and garbage would be a profitable venture given that their cost to the employer is the amount of government sponsored rice they eat which is available at Rs.2 / kg.

So if even 15 of them could get one kilo of Aluminum it is break even!"



With such extreme conditions, where do we go with education and the rest?



Procyon Mukherjee







