Posts Tagged ‘wage’
Workers in their districts
What has changed in the numbers of Maharashtra’s workers over ten years, over the period marked by the recordings of two censuses, 2001 and 2011?
This experimental chart shows us the flow and accumulation in Maharashtra of what the Census calls ‘total workers’, and by this the Census enumerators mean those who said they have employment (or have worked for themselves) for more than six months, and those who have had work (or wages) for less than six months. These two divisions are called ‘main’ and ‘marginal’.
The difference between these two descriptors of working status may be more grey than black-and-white, for the Census records how much time is spent working and not how much is earned (and saved and spent) as payment for that time spent. Hence, a ‘main’ worker who has been employed for 7 to 8 months of the year may have earned through wages, salaries or commissions just as much as a ‘marginal’ worker did by working for 5 months.
This is only to show that ‘workers’ as counted by a Census can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and for those wanting to get a fuller and richer view of the matter, it is best to read the Census data as a layer above or below one or two other sources of data, such as the NSSO and the results of a field study for example in a district.
What then do the districts of Maharashtra tell us? First, that the number of workers increased between 2001 and 2011 in most but not all districts, and that those districts with the largest increases in numbers were Thane (1.312 million more, 41.28% more), Pune (1.094 million more, 37.05% more), Mumbai Suburban (0.582 million more, 18.48% more), Nashik (0.577 million more, 26.43% more), and Aurangabad (0.398 million more, 33.84% more). There are also Beed with 31.12% more workers and Jalna with 29.85% more workers.
Next, that Mumbai and Mumbai Suburban, together with Thane and Pune, have 13.56 million total workers which is 27% of all Maharashtra’s workers! That is a concentration of numbers, but it tells us nothing about the conditions they work in, whether they are paid adequately to support a family and household (the major unions have been asking for a national minimum floor wage of Rs 10,000 for two years now) and whether these earners receive as is their right workers’ benefits. That is why we try as much as is possible to read the invaluable account of India and its districts and villages as described by the Census together with other sources and studies.
The big money in India’s cities

Almost seven out of ten rupees banked in India are to be found in the top 100 centres. They account for 68.5% of the total bank deposits in India.
The concentration of the country’s bank deposits in India’s urban centres can be seen in this detail from a table I have assembled using data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
This is the quarterly series that the RBI puts out and is called ‘Quarterly Statistics on Deposits and Credit of Scheduled Commercial Banks’.
The intriguing table which forms the image is of the top 100 urban centres ranked by bank deposits, and arranged alphabetically, for the years 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013. The city names and total deposits (in crore rupees) are seen. This is the lower end of the table, and I have coloured ten cities to show how their deposits have changed over six years.
The rate of growth has been extremely steep. We have here Panaji, Patiala, Pune, Ranchi, Shillong, Thane, Thiruvananthapuram, Udaipur, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam for no reason other than their entries for all four years are visible. The patterns for the rest of the top 100 centres is generally the same.
For these ten cities, the average growth rate of their total bank deposits over these six years is 190%! This is most significant to us, especially considering the food inflation, the cost of cultivation, wage rates of agricultural labour and allied issues I write about in this diary. Have the wage rates for agricultural labour grown over these last six years at even one-third this average rate? Not at all.
From this small set of ten cities alone, the lowest rate of growth of total bank deposits is 88% (Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh) and the highest is 249% (Thane in Maharashtra).
The progression of the size of total deposits can be seen from Shillong (in Meghalaya) from Rs 2,577 crore in 2007 to Rs 8,311 crore in 2013 (which is dwarfed by the others). In Ranchi (Jharkhand) total bank deposits have grown from Rs 6,436 crore in 2007 to Rs 21,688 crore in 2013!
That is why the top 100 centres accounted for 68.5% of the total bank deposits in India – this is a ratio that has remained roughly the same for the last six years. In addition, as the ‘Quarterly Statistics’ has noted in its highlights, the top 100 centres also accounted for 76.9% of total bank credit.
And that is why it means little for central and state governments, and for businesses and NGOs and social entrepreneurships to talk about ‘financial inclusion’ when we have proof – quarter after quarter – of the persistence of financial inequality between India and Bharat.
The looters of India and what their robbery costs the people
A report in The Hindu, the English-language daily, of 2013 February 01 gives us some indication of the scale of robbery that the country continues to suffer, despite the anti-corruption protests that have waxed and waned over two years. The report also shows the impunity with which politically-connected business people can flout the law, evade tax, ignore court orders and stay out of jail. For the ordinary salaried Indian, a transfer from her or his bank account of 50,000 rupees or more (about USD 940 or EUR 690) must be accompanied by extra information that banks are required to demand. But for this super-rich set of looters, there are no restrictions when their transactions run into millions of dollars, euros or pound sterling.
The report in the Hindu has quoted a classified note made by the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, on 2012 March 30. This note contains what the department calls “spontaneous information” – this means information given to it by a foreign counterpart.
The report quotes the note’s contents: “Intelligence indicates that Subrata Roy Sahara, DOB 15/06/1948, has control over a financial account with a U.K. financial institution in the name of Aamby Valley (Mauritius) Ltd, account number 539469 and the account holder intends to transfer GBP 8 million from this account to SG Hambros Bank (Chanel Islands) Ltd, number 0464163 in the name of Aamby Valley (Mauritius) Ltd and a further GBP 190 million to Bank of China, London Branch account number 781505-0220-000 in the name of Aamby Valley (Mauritius) Ltd.”
The report in the Hindu said government of India “may have failed to act against the Sahara group for duping small investors in fraudulent schemes despite intelligence gathered early last year of large fund movements in overseas accounts valued at well over GBP 203 million (at current exchange rates), connected to companies associated with its Managing Director and Chairman Subrata Roy. Mr. Roy was charged by the SEBI [that is, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, which exists to protect the interests of investors including small investors] in June 2011 and by the RBI in August 2011 for unauthorised raising of funds from the public“.

That 203 million pounds was equal to the amount earned as wages by rural households in Andhra Pradesh for a year under the employment guarantee programme.
These are enormous sums of money – 203 million pound sterling!
In Indian rupees, that sum is 17,080,683,900 or 1,708 crore. That is a sum of money which is very nearly equivalent to the amount earned as wages in the state of Andhra Pradesh, for 2011-12, through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) programme by 4,153,850 rural households! Under the MGNREGA rural residents find employment for at least 100 days a year, and the work they did for INR 1,728.13 crore in that year was on rural connectivity, on flood control and protection, on water conservation and water harvesting, drought proofing, micro-irrigation works, irrigation for land owned by scheduled caste and tribal and below poverty line families, and the renovation of traditional water bodies.
A global week’s food
How much food does your family need in a week? That depends on where you are (Ecuador or Mexico, Bhutan or Egypt, Chad or Germany) and what you can afford. These pictures below are a remarkable sociological inquiry into what the global food price crisis can mean for families around the world. They can be found in the presentation by Ricardo Uauy (Institute of Nutrition, University of Chile) who draws on the world-spanning work of Menzel and D’Aluisio in 2005.
His presentation can be found in the very timely book, Mitigating the Nutritional Impacts of the Global Food Price Crisis, by Elizabeth Haytmanek and Katherine McClure (Institute of Medicine), which can be read as a pdf from the National Academies Press.
What does this series of pictures tell us? In situations such as Egypt and Ecuador, if it is necessary to make do with a reduced income, it is possible to decrease food quantity without necessarily sacrificing the food quality. Ironically, a reduced income might cause the family to cut out the unnecessary processed foods and soft drinks, which would improve this family’s nutritional status.
A family in Chad spends only US$1 on food each week. The essence of their meagre diet is cereals and some legumes, and almost exclusively features plant foods. A family in Bhutan can only afford US$5 per week for its food. There is less food overall, and it is basically plant foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables. There are less animal foods, as grains figure prominently.
In Quito, Ecuador, however, families spend about US$32 on food, and sacks of cereals, wheat, and some legumes are featured prominently. Less fruits and vegetables are seen as compared to the previous families’ diets. In this scenario where there is less variety, if some foods are eliminated from the picture, the family’s consumption will suffer in nutritional quality. In Cairo, a family spends US$69 dollars per week on food. This amount of weekly expenditure in Egypt still enables a fairly varied diet, with fruits and vegetables seen as prominent in their mix.
In Cuernavaca, Mexico, families spend about US$189 per week. Here fruits and vegetables are abundant, although processed foods and sweetened beverages figure prominently. In Germany, families spend about US$500 per week to feed a family of four. There is much variety, including a great deal of processed foods, although fresh fruits and vegetables are also prominent in the household.
These pictures demonstrate what foods people buy with the amount of money they have to spend on food each week. While these photos convey the present status of these populations, they suggest what people might stop buying if they had less money, during a food crisis, for example.
In crisis situations, families preserve diets based on less expensive foods. If their income is sharply reduced, families do away with animal foods and nonstaple foods. They eat less meat, less dairy, less processed foods, less vegetables, and less fruits; they are predominately dependent on cereals, fats, and oils. They find ways to get adequate energy at a very low price, but may forego appropriately nutritious foods, which results in poor quality diets that are inadequate in terms of micronutrients.
Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio’s book is an around-the-world exploration of average daily life in 24 countries, focusing on food. Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, details each family’s weekly food purchases and average daily life. The centerpiece of each chapter is a portrait of the entire family surrounded by a week’s worth of groceries accompanied by interviews and detailed grocery lists.
What about South Asia? In Mitigating the Nutritional Impacts of the Global Food Price Crisis, Josephine Iziku Ippe, Nutrition Manager with Unicef (United Nation’s Children’s Fund) in Bangladesh, explained that issues affecting prices at the regional level include trade barriers, especially with India, and export bans.
The large flood of 2007 also affected food prices. Despite this, in 2007, the percentage of food grain imports dramatically increased and reached 6% of total imports compared to 3% in previous years. The food price shock clearly worsened the food security situation in 2008 with 40% of households in Bangladesh reporting that they were greatly affected.
Due to the higher food prices, a majority of households in Bangladesh lost purchasing power. In 2008, the real monthly income per household decreased by 12% when compared to 2005 incomes. Real wage rates remained stable while the terms of trade (daily wage/rice price) further decreased in 2008. Moreover, expenditures (particularly for food) increased to an unprecedented level of 62%. of the total expenditures for households. Overall, about one in four households nationwide was affected.