My Proposition for Poverty alleviation in Farmers - E-Kisan

Here’s an article I wrote for a friend. My proposition E-Kisan is very dear to my heart but I wonder how viable it is…

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PROSPECTS OF MICRO FINANCE IN PAKISTAN

The poor in Pakistan have generally been left alone because of perceived high risks, their inability to provide collateral and the high cost associated with small transactions. Thus the rich-poor gap widens and the poor have no route to lift themselves out of their misery.

Microfinance is the most powerful poverty alleviation tool being used today. It has been used with great success by Grameen bank in Bangladesh, CrediAmigo in Brazil, Equity Building Society in Kenya and Bank Rakyat in Indonesia. Microfinance calls for a radical change in thinking. The poor should be perceived not as a burden, but as prospective customers capable of bringing in profits. There is a hidden fortune at the bottom of the pyramid which needs to be tapped.

It is fallacious to think that the poor are not capable of returning loans. The credit return rate for Grameen bank is 99.99%. It is also a mistake to think that the poor are defaulters. They have invested their life savings in their plot of rural land and their huts; they will not leave their sole investment and run away. In fact the default rate is much higher in the rich than in the poor! The poor return their loans promptly to be allowed further loans. For example if a woman is given a loan to buy ingredients for her catering business, she will pay it back from what she earns so she can buy more ingredients. Thus profits and social welfare can go together.

Micro financing is acutely needed in Pakistan and there is a huge gap in the market especially where technology related micro financing is concerned. One such service is Amaana which provides the “unbanked” payment solutions via SMS, email, Web checkout, or a voice portal. Mobile phones have great penetration in Pakistan and can be effectively used in the rural areas to reach the poor at low cost.

I propose a microfinance cum auction system called E-Kisan for Pakistan. Farmers register via their mobile phones at the E-Kisan centre for a small fee and are provided seeds of their choice. Once their field ripens they notify the centre as to its quality and quantity and what price they expect. The E-Kisan centre then puts this forth before different buyers from the world and ensures the best price for the farmer. E-Kisan also charges 3% of the transaction.

In case some thing goes wrong with a farmer’s field, E-Kisan will still not make a loss. It will retain the fee paid by the farmer at registration time.

Empowerment of poor farmers will circumvent their oppression by cruel feudal lords. They will have an opportunity to lift themselves out of their poverty and a fair chance at exercising their budding entrepreneurship skills. The enterprise will also sustain along the way because it is based on a proven and successful model.

Allama Iqbal says:

Jis khet se na ho muyassar uske dahkan ko rozi
Uss khet ke har goshai gandum ko jala do!

If a farmer is not able to eat from his field
That country has no right to exist!

The Real Pakistanis

I went to my dad’s hospital today which is located in Kharadar. I saw crowds of sick people, wailing children, harassed mothers, miserable humanity. A little girl came for check up, PCM Grade 3. Her father earns Rs. 100 per day. How can her parents afford to feed her nutritious food specially with essential food prices climbing higher everyday? How can she even buy medicines to be able to get well?

You think this is a hospital, people on the streets are probably better off. But they’re not. The smoke, noise and pollution was enough to give me a headache in the few hours I spent there. And these people live there…

This is the oh-so-famous common man. For him day to day survival is a struggle. These are also our fellow countrymen, our brothers and sisters. Why then do we not relate to them? All Pakistanis don’t live in Defence. They live in dirty, narrow cobbled streets where sunshine is scanty and infections plentiful, where mosquitos hover and stench pervades and garbage is strewn everywhere. While we eat our KFC and Mcdonalds our brothers and sisters die of slow starvation.

Just look past the invisible barrier at Clifton Bridge and see. All Pakistanis are not as blessed as we. While we go to schools and colleges, little kids are busy in hard manual labour and household chores. They are hungry, malnourished and unhappy. What dreams can they have for the future? A full stomach, a single day of safety and love, when mommy and daddy aren’t tensed and distressed? Will the starving man not steal? Will he not grab every morsel that comes his way, whatever the consequences.

This is not a common man. He is a Pakistani, an individual, a human being. And thus he deserves every opportunity that every other person gets. A right to education, clean drinking water and sanitation. And above all hope. Hope that working hard will yield results. Hope that a lack of “source” will not prevent his getting a job. Hope that not having a prestigious English-medium education will not effect his chances in life.

Skeletons forced to remain alive.

How can you step into life with an open, honest happy heart knowing that there will be no justice? And that you’ll be supressed by inequality and discrimination and a pervasive feeling of hatred?

Politicians - promises that will never come true. Purposes self satisfying. Full wallets, empty hearts. A vision that is meant to deceive. Selfishness and greed.

What I am unable to understand is the lack of love. Why do we not want our brothers and sisters to prosper? Their progress will not reduce our own. Why not help them and bring them on the same level as yourself? If a man has fallen down, will you not help him up? Or would you rather crush him as you go?

Inhuman cruelty.

Pakistan doesn’t need corporate successes. We don’t need flashy ads, mobile phones, McDonalds and KFC. The need of the day is quality education for all children. A better economy. Justice and social equality. And above all empathy.

The little girl’s eyes were large and sparkling. And somehow she was still able to smile. An endearingly shy smile that slowly widened to reveal missing teeth. Lets do something to keep that smile ever blooming…

Tears of Blood

Iraq doesn’t make front page news anymore. Kashmir is an old tale. Soon suicide bombings in Pakistan will cease to affect us. What does it matter if in some distant corner of the world our Muslim brothers are dying? Or even that our countrymen are dying, as long as our precious lives are safe? If you decide to ignore the Muslim brotherhood part, isn’t it enough that our fellow human beings are dying? The least relationship we can have amongst us humans is to atleast feel sorrowful when one of us dies.

Fragments of a poem I wrote in 10th grade, when the U.S invaded Afghanistan and the Palestinian Intifada raged on, flash across my memory…

Charred bodies strewn all across us
Little hearts crushed and then thrown away
Little souls flown away prematurely
Other souls imprisioned in cages

Prisons of the mind which are full of hate
Or driven to mad fury by helplessness
Prisons of the mind, enjoying splattered gore
Hearts of lead, seeing nor hearing

Destroying an entire nation for the satisfaction of seeing one man die?
Does it really give you so much pleasure to see innocent lives go to waste?

Seeing others fall makes you rise higher
Climb anothe rung of the worldly ladder
Why don’t you clasp the oppressed’s hand?
And lead him up with you?

It ended on a note of hope. Is it not unsurprising that I cannot remember those lines of hope anymore?

These verses are more relevant now than they were 7 years ago.

The war is at our doorstep.

And our hearts are becoming hardened to human suffering.

“And We have set a barrier before them and a barrier behind them and covered them from above, therefore they see nothing”

- Surah Yasin, Verse # 9