Manipal, September 8: Ramon Magsaysay award winner Dr Harish Hande has expressed regret that in India rich are living on the subsidies paid by poor in the form of taxes.
Delivering the T A Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) Leadership Lecture on 'Social Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Energy and the Youth' here on Wednesday, he said India claims to have 8 per cent to 9 per cent GDP growth and is the second largest growing economy in the world. “However, there is stark difference in real where the other side of India is at the helm of unprivileged class. India is a paradox of overdeveloped and underdeveloped,” he added.
There is a need for a paradigm shift aiding holistic business approach that benefits the poor mass, Mr. Hande said.
“India needs decentralised business models supporting sustainable development. India can be the centre of innovation for business models that can be replicated by the third world countries like Latin America and Africa,” he observed.
Asserting himself as classic product of subsidy, Hande ridiculed that students are not taught practical picture of real India. Most of the higher educational institutions are the product of subsidies. Educated youth are not in a position to offer solutions to the problems of poor Indians. India should become leader for 4 billion poor people across the globe rather than taxing the classic model of sustainability by focusing more on the markets of classic business models of McDonalds and Walmart.
“Rich in India are hiding behind the poor and we should be blamed for not providing solutions,” he said and added that the frustration is the best part of motivation and urged youths to immerse them in the atmosphere that makes real India, he added.
Rural India is much more complex. Social entrepreneurship starts with how to break the barriers.
The needs and wants are different from each other. He said: “We have not created models on the needs of the poor keeping into mind the variety in cash flows.”
Ridiculing the true meaning of Sustainable Development in India in reference to salt workers of Kutch and coal miners of India, Hande said there are nearly 45 per cent of the population in India that lack electricity facilities. Even after 65 years of independence, more than 60 per cent Indians who live in rural India use the technology that survived the stone age.
Deeper into economic strata of the society, the investment on the cost of electricity gets high. “We need a decentralised approach of energy that paves way to the sensitivity of breaking the barriers between people to people and banks and people including the poor.”
Pro Chancellor of Manipal University H.S.Ballal, Director of the Institute A.S. Vasudeva Rao, Dean (Planning and Development) Chowdari Prasad, Professor at the Institute R.C. Natarajan and Member of Institute Governing Council H. Shantharam, were present.
Comments
Add new comment