Village Visit in Delhi

The villages near Delhi were very different than those near Chennai. Whereas the villages around Chennai had decent paved roads, a (mostly) reliable supply of electricity, and reasonable level of penetration by the major consumer goods companies in India (i.e. Hindustan Unilever, ITC), the villages near Delhi had none of these. The roads were full of potholes and were overrun by water buffaloes and camels; the villages were lucky if they received 4-5 hours of electricity a day; and the Kirana (convenient) store owner had to go to another town (3 or so hours away) to restock his inventory.








Pic 1: Overloaded truck near Delhi
Pic 2: Another obstacle on the road: a fire

The drive out was pretty interesting on its own. We quickly gained an appreciation of one of the biggest challenges in moving goods across India on roads. Apparently every time a commercial vehicle crosses a state boundary in India, the driver is responsible for finding a tax office (never clearly marked) and paying the 'entry' tax. If the driver fails to do so, any police official anywhere in the state can stop him/her and ask to see the tax-paid receipt (out-of-state commercial vehicles are easily identified by the license plate number and color.) Failure to produce the receipt results in a fine of 20 times the tax amount (or, as the driver later told us, a bribe of 4 times the tax amount!)

I have to admit that I was completely unprepared for extent of poverty that we saw. One person's story really hit me hard. It was one of the last people we talked. He was a day laborer who worked both as a construction worker and as a tailor.

Apparently, he used to work exclusively as a tailor until market forces turned against him. Industrialization and the introduction of ready-made clothing took a huge toll on him and others like him. In the good old days, he used to work from home and always had plenty of work. People would come to him on a regular basis; after all, tailors had a natural monopoly in providing clothes. The introduction of ready-made clothing broke that monopoly and completely destroyed his businesses and so he had to take up another profession - construction - to make ends meet.

Even though he worked in two professions, he still only managed to find work for about half the month - "some months i work 10 days, others i get lucky and work 20." His average monthly salary was around Rs 2000 ($50) and that had to provide for 7 people... that worked out to about 24 cents per family member per day.

Worst of all, he had no idea whether he would be called upon to work on any given day. The middlemen who control employment didn't seem to give him too much visibility. Construction work in India is literally back-breaking and is done without any modern equipment in ridiculously dangerous conditions. Clearly, it had taken a heavy toll on him; he was 40 but looked 70. When I looked around, I wondered what would happen to his family if he got hurt. He was the sole breadwinner and barely made enough to make ends meet as it was.








Pic 3: Villager's family

By the end of the conversation, I could barely stand being in the same room. I felt an unbearable sense of guilt when I thought about how many nights I had spent $50, even a $100, going out with my friends in Boston. And here he was supporting an entire family on that much ... only he spent that much in a month and that too to support 7 people.