Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Direct cash transfer

The apprehensions raised by Mihir Shah (September 20) against direct cash transfer (DCT) as the best option to address poverty in India are legitimate. From long term field experiments conducted in Karnataka, Tim Hanstad, et al, (Economic and Political Weekly) have suggested the distribution of small homestead plots of minimum 15 to 20 cents of land to landless agricultural labourers (they are the bulk of BPL population in India) in and around their workplace as the easiest way of alleviating their poverty. In the early 1980s China could enhance their Agricultural production through this method (responsible household farming) many folds. The base of the “Kerala model” of uplift of rural population was the land reforms implemented there in the 1960s and 1970s which made 28 lakh agricultural families the proud owners of their pattom lands. A combination of such land reform and DCT will definitely eliminate poverty.

R.Gopimony,

Thiruvananthapuram

In rural India, mostly village leaders and their family members operate a few shops and businesses. They are the only ones who have the support mechanisms, knowledge, and the skills to make a business succeed. A great majority of the rural poor does not have the ability or experience to run businesses, with or without access to credit. At best, they might benefit from the trickle down effect if landlords and small businesses prosper.

There are no easy answers. Poverty, in large part, can be solved if the poor gain new skills and if more jobs become available in the rural sector. For some, the solution lies in ownership of a permanent income generating asset — land.

Ahmed Kabeer,

Dubai

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