Letter to Prime Minister: Corporate jobs should be transferred to rural areas

Respected Prime Minister Sir,

I am writing a letter to bring in your notice the problem of unemployment in rural areas and would also like to suggest a way which I think can start the job creation process in rural India.

We are a nation of 120 crore people and soon our population will have maximum number of youngsters. The biggest challenge ahead will be providing the employment for this large young population. This young brigade will make our nation a world power if we utilize their energy by providing them the adequate employment opportunities, otherwise they will prove as a burden of unemployment. I admire your vision and efforts to make India a global power. It reflects from your policies that creating employment opportunities is the basic step towards this goal. The announcement of ‘Startup India’ program in your 15th August speech is a very good initiative in this direction.

Currently we are facing two issues; (1) First unemployment and (2) second the employment opportunities we have are limited only to big cities. For jobs people are migrating from rural areas to cities. As result cities have become overcrowded and living in these cities have also become very expensive. In last two decades private sector has played an important role in job creations but unfortunately most of the jobs were created only in big cities. IT and BPO sector alone created millions of jobs. These jobs could have easily shifted to smaller cities or rural areas as they were not fully dependent on core infrastructure like good roads and better connectivity etc. Better internet connectivity and skilled manpower could have spread this industry to the rural parts of India. But we lost the opportunity and this industry remained only in some big cities.

The primary factor for the rise of IT and BPO industry in India was we were cost competitive. Workforce and basic infrastructure was available at much lower cost in India. Almost every company wanted to have Offshore Centre in India. Cost of living and cost of basic infrastructure in cities was not expensive hence most of the companies setup their facilities in big cities. Over the time these companies expanded operations but expansion was also limited to cities. Companies required more workforce and people from the rural areas migrated to cities because of lack of job opportunities in their native (rural) areas. With time living cost in cities increased multifold. As result salaries and infrastructure cost increased many times for companies and we lost the cost competitive edge globally. Countries like China, Philippines, Vietnam and Brazil have acquired the desired skills over the time and also remained much cost competitive than us. This is the reason a lot of IT and BPO jobs were moved to these countries. Had we shifted some jobs to rural areas in time, no other country could have come near to us on cost competitiveness.

Whatever is lost is lost. Now we should think of how to create an environment of job creation and entrepreneurship in rural India. The program you announced on Independence Day ‘Startup India Standup India’ is a good initiative but unless we create environment of technology, entrepreneurship and startups in rural area, it won’t give much results. Making finance easily available for startups in rural is much needed but we also need to do something to create an air of startups there. There may be better ways of achieving it but I believe the best way is to migrate some existing jobs to rural areas. It’s easy to migrate existing jobs rather than creating the new jobs. If we migrate existing jobs, experienced professionals will also move with these jobs to rural areas. There are a lot of people working in cities who belong to rural areas or willing to move out of cities to spend a quality life. They are the people who will fuel the startup growth in rural. Let’s take the example of two hot startup destinations in country; Gurgaon and Bangalore. There was a time when these cities were like any other small city. The companies setup their offices in these cities and people came here for the work. After some time the same people turn to entrepreneurs and fueled the startup growth in these cities.

The challenge is how to move some of the existing jobs to rural areas. I believe it’s possible if we come up with a policy to make it mandatory for corporates to have some percentage of employees in rural areas. Corporates are already spending 2% of their profits for social welfare under CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) program. Every year corporates are spending thousands of crores under CSR activity but it’s not making any major impact. I believe if we make it mandatory for corporates to shift some percentage of the workforce to rural areas under CSR activity it will bring revolution. Not only jobs will be created in rural areas which will in turn fuel the startup grown, but also make the companies cost competitive globally in long run. Companies will find manpower and basic infrastructure at much lower cost in rural areas. As result companies will be able to win more business and generate more job opportunities.

Problem Areas:

• Lack of employment opportunities

• Most of the available job opportunities are centered in big cities

• People migrating from rural areas to cities for jobs

• Over years living and infrastructure cost have become very expensive in cities

• Companies based in India has lost the cost competitive edge because of the high cost in cities

Solutions:

• Create an environment of entrepreneurship and startups in rural India

• Migrate some existing jobs to rural India

• Corporates should have some percentage of their workforce in rural India

• Ask corporates to migrate some of their current jobs to rural Indian under CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) program

I hope I am able to explain the issue and proposed solution well.

Thank you so much for giving your kind attention.

Yours Sincerely,

Vijay Inder Chauhan.

(vijayinderchauhan@gmail.com)