A contra view of our welfare schemes like ration shops and social forestry

By Philip Mudartha, Doha-Qatar
Bellevision Media Network

24 August 2010: Every year, I visit my sister in rural Karnataka. She lives in a hamlet that lies between Bailur and Nakre in Karkala Taluka of Udupi District. Usually I travel by the direct bus to Karkala from Shirva-Manchakal via Moodubelle and Nakre to reach her place. She lives with her husband, a daughter and two grandchildren.

 

The last time when I reached my sister’s house on a cloudy lazy morning, it was time for a cup of tea. However, when she went inside the kitchen to prepare the tea, she discovered that she had run out of sugar.

 

“Can you hear?” That is what she calls her husband for thirty-five plus years. “Run and get sugar from the post office.”

 

The nearest post office is around 500 meters away and it sells anything under the sun; anything the villagers want for their frugal lives, besides stamps, inland letters and post cards.

 

“The Konkana is selling sugar at a premium of five rupees a kilo. Just see if you can manage till the ration shop opens”, my brother-in-law shouted from outside.

 

 

My sister has been resourceful and has been a good manager of household affairs. With tea she often would serve rice cakes oozing jaggery. For time being i had to munch the rice cake.

 

As sugar was the priority, my brother-in-law asked me to accompany him on ‘mission sugar’ and two of us boarded bus at 08:30 and headed towards the ‘nukkad’ two miles away to take a another bus at 09:00 passing through the ration shop four miles away. The bus stand at the nukkad, Rangana-palke was packed as the next bus would be an hour or so later. Having no other option we too pushed our way through the crowded bus and felt like like sardines in a tin hanging on to our dear lives.

 

After some time of the suffocating bus ride we reached the town of Bailur, which hosts the much sought after ration shop.

 

 

The ration shops are policy implementation vehicles for our pro-poor governments. That is where the food subsidies end up and our tax money as well, yours and mine.

 

We reached the ration shop at 09:45 and to our dismay discovered that sugar and our luck had run out of stock. The shop keeper sheepishly said, only yesterday the sugar stock has finished you may come and check tomorrow, new stock may arrive.”

 

On the hunt for sugar, my brother-in-law was hungry and thirsty and so also myself. Sitting on a wooden bench at a ‘Udupi Brahmin Shakahari Upahara Griha’ we ate hot buns and drank piping hot and jaggery sweetened coffee. As we finished eating my brother-in-law asked chaklis to be packed for his two grandchildren at home who would always inquire as to what eatables were brought for them.

 

 

It was 10:30 am and there was no bus for quite some time to get back home, that too empty handed having ‘mission sugar’ failed. Meanwhile, a rickshaw stood by our side as he could realise that we were in need of a transport. With our other alternative we boarded the rickshaw and the fare till the post office was rupees thirty.

 

Alighting at the post office my ‘penny wise and pound foolish’ brother-in-law purchased a kilo of sugar at five rupees premium and we reached home for morning breakfast meal of ‘pez and nistem’ just around noon.

 

“Philip, would you like to have a cup of tea?” my sister called out from the kitchen and continued in the same breath, “You are lucky that there was sugar at the ration shop”.

 

 

“Yes, we were lucky. It was the last kilo, and then the stock ran out at the ration shop”, in order to avoid being ridiculed by my sister for the failure of ‘mission sugar’ my brother-in-law shot out a white lie. Hell would have broken loose if he told the truth realising the amount of money that had gone into the mission for just saving five rupees. In the final analysis one kilogram of sugar had cost nearly hundred rupees and a net loss of four manhours, which otherwise would have been spent on his farm. Following this experience of our visit to the ration shop i was forced to ask a question to myself whether the well-intentioned subsidies really reach the poor through fair price shops in rural areas.

 

Our ’aam admi’ has empowered our leaders with their mandate to dispense your and my money money in the name of the poor. The leaders have deep pockets to dip when it comes to social schemes like fair price shops for food articles, fertilizers, domestic fuel, and BPL needs as well as for distribution of saplings for social forestry...