Encouraging enterprise

The elderly in the family, particularly those found with age-matching physical fitness and having lived a life of fulfilment in Mysuru of years gone-by, could be heard reminding the young members of the family on the threshold of adulthood about the imperatives and importance of industriousness as the hallmark of a person. Their crisply stated prescription that no person should be idling, with the words Udyogam Purushalakshanam, is considered to be quaint expression only because earning a livelihood is no longer restricted to males in society. The debate on the issue of industriousness as applied to males and females seems to be limited to urban populations given its irrelevance in rural parts witnessing the conspicuous presence of industrious females both within the confines of their homes and out in the fields, outnumbering the males tilling the soil using the plough, and females taking over the rest of the tasks — transplanting, harvesting, winnowing, sorting to separate grains and dockage, cooking and serving food. In short, rural women have pre-empted the unknown author of the aforementioned quaint expression.

Parents spending their resources in the stages of upbringing and educating their children with the avowedly main goal of grooming them to be adults capable of standing on their own legs as it were are currently staring down the barrel in the backdrop of a) industry circles saying that the University graduates are not employable and b) abrupt decline in opportunities in the job market even in the IT sector.

The society is beholden to the thousands of young men and women, as in Mysuru, Bengaluru and many other towns in Karnataka as well as other States across the country, for launching themselves on many new-found enterprises, with the setting up of roadside mobile canteens in numbers never seen anytime before being at the top, yet, this mass of good Samaritans is in the unorganised category, thus unable to reap any monetary and other benefits that the workforce in the organised category commands (allowances, provident fund, paid leave, medical care, post-retirement benefits and so on). The sad story also applies to the thousands of vendors of essentials, particularly vegetables at day break, who are at the mercy of blood-thirsty middlemen (commission agents).

In the foregoing backdrop, the reported call given by the Union Finance Minister to financial institutions, banks including the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development to come forward in funding the unfunded, self-employed sections meeting the needs of society, augurs well. While some motivated individuals are already in the noble act of encouraging enterprise, more people have to emulate them.