Proposal for Full Employment and Price Stability through Sustainable Development of Villages - Fully developed villages

The purpose of the proposal is to show the common man, policymakers, Government & other stakeholders that it is possible to achieve full employment and price stability through sustainable development of villages, in a country like India which is resource rich.  And we are providing a model & structure to do that.  

Is it possible to have a workable structure to achieve this? 

India occupies top 3 position in cultivation of many of the farm produces. To sustain and get the maximum benefit out of this, we need to streamline the entire process. This strength is not utilized to get maximum economic benefit to farmers, farm workers and villages. We need an innovative structure to get the best possible outcome. 

Farmers not getting adequate return is a perennial problem in India; produces like tomato thrown to landfill due to excessive supply is a regular occurrence, conveying lack of planning. Middle men and retailers reap the benefits at the cost of farmers

India gets plenty of rain, but storage is very limited. Rural India is home to farming and vast number of unorganised, informal workforce - most of their productive capacity is not utilized. Rural India also is lacking in facilities to produce value added farm products & other essentials which could be produced  with rural workforce participation. Rural population is 980 million, out of which at least 400 million could be part of this productive activity. 

So, rural India has all the necessary real resources to create facilities to produce all the needed basic essentials.  

Water security is an integral part of this process, as only 8% of rainwater is stored in a year (detailed presentation on water security is provided in our Oct 9th (2019) proposal). Chain of water bodies to store rain water have to be built. 

Energy needs can be met by local solar projects to encourage distributed power systems and our traditional gobar gas system could be revived.  

Additionally need to have investment in production facilities for essentials, processing facilities, storage facilities, educational facilities/research facilities/health facilities/sports facilities and supporting infrastructure to promote greatly enhanced real wealth/higher standard of living without adding to emissions.  

Villages have availability of the raw materials, including cultivable land, water which needs to be stored, human resources which needs to be employed and sunlight throughout the year to generate solar power. So, real resources are available to produce value added food products and whatever else could be, given their skills. With improvement in skill, more products and services could be added.

Rural enterprises owned by workers & managed with the assistance of local & district administration would be an ideal model to execute this. 

Is it possible to achieve and sustain full employment? 

India is a vast country with huge population, predominantly living in villages. It is a major strength, as human labour is an important component of productive activities. India's workforce has an extremely high share of informal workers, 85%, and dependents on agriculture & related activities are at least 65%. If they remain informal and unorganised, they will continue to be exploited. Everybody wants to transition to better employment, but the problem is lack of choices in villages. So, they become migrants, live in pitiable conditions in cities, as their work is not valued much wherever they work. With big farmers shifting to mechanisation, small farmers & farm labourers move to Cities & other States for most part of an year to earn some money, leaving their families behind. Moving to cities for employment without much skill and adequate qualification, would only give room for exploitation. It is not a natural progression. Organised and formal sector employment is only 58.9 million. With climate catastrophe more likely than ever and threatening newer pandemics, a sustainable economic model is the need of the hour, rather than a model driven by billion aspirations. So, an ideal solution is getting better employment opportunities in the village itself, as the size of the rural workforce is humongous & there are many issues connected to migration. 

Given the above context, we are talking about achieving formal and organised work for at least 400 million people. First, these 400 million strong workforce cannot be absorbed by the existing formal and organised private sector, as it employs only 59 million formal workers presently. Second, government cannot provide either regular or guaranteed transitional job to all of them, as it is the private sector which provisions the government by supplying goods and services and so it necessarily has to be a large enough sector. Third, ideally it needs to be located at the villages. This is a very unique and challenging context and so a unique solution is warranted.

Our proposal is that Government spends to create infrastructure in all the villages, so that every village will be equipped with roads, water bodies, drinking water facility, school, library, health facility, sports and recreation facilities, solar power and biogas plants, cold storage, warehouse, and skill training facility.

Every village would promote a rural enterprise making the villagers as working partners and engage in production of goods and services for local consumption and sale. This includes vegetable and fruit cultivation, processing and value addition to farm produces. Through training, skills could be imparted and improved to enlarge the number of products and services. 

Government would play facilitatory role, coordinate at reginal level to streamline production of essentials to meet the demand, with active participation of village, taluk and district administration and Agriculture University.

This structure would create a vast producer, consumer community consisting of at least 400 & 980 million people respectively.  

To address the issue of periodical downturn in economy, the existing NREGA, expanded to urban areas with the number of days extended to 300 in stages, could act as the transitional job guarantee program. So, NREGA would be expanding during downturn and shrinking during upturn in economy, so that it supports it as an automatic stabilizer. NREGA wage also has to be increased in stages.  

Nature of work in rural enterprises is production related. NREGA works are related to asset creation & maintenance in water storage & conservation, ground water recharge, soil productivity enhancement, rural housing, livestock promotion infrastructure and other social infrastructure. With the growth of rural enterprises, infrastructure demands in villages will grow. Water storage in series of ponds should be expanded massively to capture most of the rain water.  

As long as loose enough fiscal is maintained, the NREGA pool won't grow all that much as workers transition to private sector employment.  

As the rural enterprise is a producer-consumer group, additionally producing value added essential products for sale, it can structurally sustain itself and profitable. Within a year of operation, it could become self sustaining and start making profit. 

With this model, full employment and price stability could be established.

Conclusion 

The plan clearly shows, real human resources produce and consume real goods and services and in this real economy, the role of nominal money is to make it all work. 

Under the present system of money creation, the fiat non-convertible floating exchange rate currency system, government spending doesn't get funded by tax revenue, as gold reserves doesn't limit currency creation (gold or dollar  reserves is not required to maintain the currency peg (as it is floated) and meet convertibility into gold on demand (as it is non-convertible)). The spending of the currency issuing government in the present currency system is constrained only by the availability of real goods and services to purchase with those spent currency in real economy and regulatorily restricted by the parliamentary approval of Budget and Appropriation Bill. As part of the budgetary process, every spending proposal is analysed from multiple perspectives, including real resource availability, inflationary impact and suitable preventive measures. The government continues to assume that it has only limited capacity to create currency and so is financially constrained to fund production, when productive capacities are available..

Government only needs the political will and is not financially constrained to increase the productive capacity in the country by multiple times and the way to do that is the infrastructure development as suggested above in the villages, which will pave the way for rural enterprises to be promoted by villagers themselves, inclusive growth, universal distribution, full employment and price stability. With this, we could have 600,000 model villages with all the facilities and people earning to lead a peaceful and comfortable life. The multiplier effect of this will lead to further economic development. Efficiency will be achieved with the help of technology, research and skill enhancement, thereby making the productive activities move up in the value chain.

This essential economy requires only planning and willingness, everything else is available! A country of 142 Cr people with assured income and basic facilities would be a land of peace & comfort, one of its kinds in the world!

The above proposal has evolved out of conversation with Warren Mosler & the verbatim extract of the correspondence is given 

https://mmtindia.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-above-program-has-evolved-out-of.html?m=1

Evolution of the Proposal in Conversation with Warren Mosler: A Verbatim Report

The above proposal has evolved out of conversation with Warren Mosler & the verbatim extract of the correspondence is given below: 

Warren Mosler: Thoughts on proposing to make the rural poor employment program universal and with a somewhat higher wage? 

Rajendra Rasu: The employment program for rural poor is called NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) program. 

WM: Ok  

Raj: We need to carefully look at the situation. Indian context is unique, compared to developed economies. It has an extremely high share of informal workers, 94%. 

WM: Is the NREGA wage above informal sector wages? 

Raj: NREGA wage has been increasing every year, presently it is at Rs 200 ($3) pet day. It is lower than prescribed minimum wage which is Rs 300 per day. Informal wage varies hugely state to state, based on demand & supply. In Tamilnadu, it is very high Rs 600 per day for men, Rs 400 for women. Other Southern States closer to this. In North, where jobs are few, it is close to NREGA  or minimum prescribed wage, except in Punjab.  

WM: So initially the wage could remain at 200/day to avoid flooding the system and then be increased over time probably to 500 ultimately (inflation adjusted).

As long as loose enough fiscal is maintained the NREGA pool won't grow all that much as workers transition to private sector employment etc.  

Raj: Agreed. Rural population is 980 million, out of which 750 million needs to be uplifted, we can call them poor & lower middle class. Dependence on agriculture & related activities are at least 65%. 

WM: Ok, agriculture probably could have the same output with a lot less employees?  If so, the trick is to transition those who want to transition to other/better employment?  

Raj: Exactly. Everybody want to transition to better employment, but problem is lack of choice in villages. So, they become migrants, live in pitiable conditions in cities as their work is not valued much wherever they work. Also, as big farmers shifted to mechanisation, small farmers & farm labourers move to other States for few months in a year to earn a little, leaving their family behind. Ideal solution is providing better employment in village itself, as the size of rural workforce is humongous & there are many issues connected to migration. 

WM: Exactly 

Raj:  One, is to ensure food & water security in the long run, two, migration makes them live in unliveable condition in cities, three, cities are overcrowded, four, pandemic time all came back to villages, they are reluctant to go back, five, agriculture produces don't get good price, six, middlemen & retail shops gain at the cost of farmers, workers & consumers.  

WM: Increasing agricultural yields via investment and economies of scale can mean more food with fewer employees.  That kind of productivity gain is critical for an improved standard of living.  Too often productivity is conflated with unemployment to the detriment of all.  

Raj: Yes. So, in the above context, if we make NREGA universal, challenges are:

1. Size. Even though it is a demand based guaranteed program, presently only 50 million are employed for 60 days in a year, even though scheme is for 100 days 

WM: A low enough initial wage might keep the initial size down, and wages increased as management is developed?  

Raj: I meant that the size is Himalayan, in billions. 

There is space for creating productive, social and core infrastructure in all parts of the country, particularly in villages, as the existing infrastructure is very limited. If all the 640,000 villages are going to have these infrastructure, then that will provide the impetus for private enterprises getting promoted to meet the needs of the people.

Rural enterprises owned by villagers producing value added food products & essentials could provide employment to most of them. Allied enterprises could be in water storage (only 8% of rainfall is stored & it is predicted to have huge water problem)(my Oct 9th proposal has complete details on bringing water security) & other activities as you listed in the last point. 

WM: Yes, water storage issues need to be addressed immediately.   

Raj: 2. Quality of assets created. Very low. 

WM: Not a problem as the purpose will be to facilitate the transition to private sector employment, which it will do. 

Raj: Food security has to be ensured. Now, farmers get pittance because they sell their produces as such. Value addition is done by middle men. Do that value add in village through villagers owned rural enterprises. We need to see this little differently from typical PV. Profit has to go to workers rather than nonworking private promoters. This will keep the prices also lower. It should have district administration continuous role play, for planned production on macro & micro level to avoid waste & excess, price control, management help, etc. Amul in Gujarat is a world class company, owned by milk farmers (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verghese_Kurien) 

WM: Good points. 

Raj: 3. Only assets are created, no production. 

WM: Not a problem, as above.  The large pool of employed will act as an employment agency for the private sector, allowing fiscal relaxation to increase aggregate demand to attract NREGA workers.  

Raj: Yes. Not only workers, Govt & its arms would get convinced, once it rolls out and provide more support. Once the benefit is seen, program also will evolve. 

So, a very clear district wise planning is required, involving the entire administrative machinery, to build food based enterprises, producing all food products(value-added) including farming, and other essentials. 

WM: I would suggest a move to higher agricultural efficiency- more output with fewer workers- via investment by private sector farmers, and investment in educational facilities/research facilities/health facilities/supporting infrastructure to promote high quality/emission friendly service sector expansion and greatly enhanced real wealth/higher standard of living without adding to emissions, etc. 

Raj: Agreed totally, this could bring in food, water, energy security, meet their health, education & recreational needs. 

Thanks Warren.

WAR against the pandemic

MMT India presented a policy proposal during Oct. 2019 in which the possibility of sudden disruption to all economic activities was considered and proposed an economic model focused on ensuring availability of basic necessities to all at all times and having critical & strategic infrastructure in place to meet any eventuality.

Covid19 is the worst crisis faced in the modern era, which caught all the countries, particularly the developed nations, completely unprepared & woefully short in their response to medical exigency of unseen proportion. No other crisis known to us has brought entire world to a total physical standstill, abruptly stopping all activities. It is not only a health crisis which doesn't have a known cure, it is spreading very fast & killing people, it could cause unimaginable economic disruption, shattering the livelihood of millions & millions and destroy most of the private sector if the impact is long-lasting. The crisis is unprecedented and so, better to be prepared for the worst. With the technological & medical advancement & top-notch medical facilities, we thought that we will never face a healthcare emergency threatening entire humanity; but a micro molecule has exposed our inadequacies.

It brought to the fore unbelievable deficiency in the healthcare system throughout the world and also the lack of critical & strategic infrastructure in all the countries. It also showed us that we have left substantial number of people completely vulnerable, without any guilt, to the vagaries of nature & exigencies, that too at a time when major climatic catastrophe is expected to strike us. It also reminds the Government of its  primary duty that it would do all it could to provide the basic needs to every one of it's citizens at all times and also create & maintain the critical & strategic assets that may come to life-saving rescue during exigencies. 

A country without much of human, natural, industrial & financial resources would struggle to provide these. Financial resources was a constraint when our currency was under gold standard. But now, ours is a fiat currency and Govt being the currency issuer, spends currency into existence through keystrokes whenever money is required for its planned programs (meaning, it is not a separate process of create & then spend; spending is currency creation) and so, it doesn't have financial constraint. We are endowed with huge human resources with one of the youngest population in the world, much of natural & industrial resources needed, but limited majorly by petroleum products. Country is only constrained in its priorities & planning of productive programs. If money for a fiat currency issuing Govt comes in to existence as it spends through keystrokes for its productive programs, then fiscal space could be defined as consisting of deployable human resources, infrastructure needs & industrial capacity. That way, we have huge fiscal space.

Economic priorities, needs & model cannot be the same, post the pandemic. The enormous sacrifices made by people on the front-line, including Doctors, Para medics, other hospital staff, policemen, municipal staff, transport workers, retailers, deliverymen, functional production workers & many of the Government staff working during this crisis can never be forgotten, unrecognised and not taken into account while rebuilding the economy. World & the economy cannot be the same again which is not giving preeminence to such people. Such a careless, completely inadequate, uncommitted & unrewarding institutional structure cannot be continued. 

The pandemic had taught us 'we depend on each other & we are connected'. We need to stop having policies which favor the fortunate. Otherwise, nature will strike again harder & harder. As a first step towards a life reflecting this, economic support provided now should not differentiate people. 

ENSURING BASIC NECESSITIES TO ALL AT ALL TIMES & HAVING A FUNCTIONAL STRATEGIC & CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE TO FACE EXIGENCIES LIKE THIS ARE THE LESSONS LEARNT BY ALL COUNTRIES FROM THIS ATTACK. If not, why all of us work so hard & for what?'

Stakeholders are people, private sector, local/state Governments & Central Govt. Only the Central Govt is the currency issuer and all others, including local/state governments are currency users. While looking at the role of all the stakeholders, as a currency issuer, Central Govt has to fund all others. So, during exigencies like this, State Governments have to be provided with the funds & other resources as a top priority, as they're in the forefront and basic necessities have to reach people to get their total compliance & cooperation.

First, the pandemic has to be contained & mitigated, people affected by lockdown & deprived of their livelihood have to be provided with basic necessities & households not having access to provisions & other daily needs have to be serviced.

Recommended Immediate steps:

1. Lockdown to suppress & contain the spread. If it is spreading rapidly, then 'extreme lockdown' should be imposed. Early lockdown is extremely important & we did that. Now, is the critical period. Lockdown has helped in many ways, but we're still not out of danger. If we look at the comparative graph, we are in the same trajectory as US. So, we need to continue the lockdown, till the new cases comes down drastically.
2. Stranded people at various parts of the country. State Governments are taking good care and it should be continued with stricter implementation of social distancing. 
3. Public Distribution System with it's infrastructure is very well established with access to every citizen. Utilize the PDS fully to reach food-grains, pulses & other essentials to all types of ration cardholders at doorsteps of households at free of cost. Provide cash compensation to free category of ration cardholders. 'One nation One ration card' should be given effect immediately.
4. Permit pharmacies, kirana shops, super markets & online suppliers to operate with strict enforcement of safety protocol.
5. Increase the number of beds in isolation wards with all the necessary medical equipment & protective gears. Beds should be adequate to meet huge influx of patients. On need basis, engage additional space for this, which could be converted in to isolation wards in a short time. Have adequate ambulances.  Book hotels near the hospitals for the stay of doctors & hospital staff. 
6. Increase the testing facilities all over the country. For collection of swaps for the tests, use mobile vans.
7. Do contact tracing fully, test & quarantine.
8. Whichever private hospitals are not treating covid patients, temporarily bring them under Govt control and use it 
9. Make the treatment completely free during this period, including testing.
10. Ramp up the manufacturing capacity of the needed medical equipment & protective gears; request the private sector manufacturers to participate, if conversion of their existing facility is possible for this purpose.
11. As fast & immediate reach of reliefs to all those in need is the aim, preventing leakage need not be the focus at this time.

Recommended permanent infrastructure as strategic assets, in operational condition at all times, to face exigencies like this:

1. Increase healthcare bed capacity with isolation wards, adequate manpower, equipment & protective gears. Let isolation wards be safely segregated. Build more medical colleges, post graduation seats, nursing colleges & institutes for other healthcare & hospital services.
2. Establish manufacturing facilities for equipment, disposables & protective gears with adequate stock of raw materials & finished products, equipped to operate 24x7.
3. Build Choultries for travelers, which could house homeless & stranded during exigencies. Takeover financially stressed hotels, colleges & convert them to Choultries.
4. Build community kitchens all over the country to undertake feeding on need basis; Choultries also could house them
5. Expand Amma Canteens all over the country; Akshaya Patra Foundation could also pitch in. Choultries also could house them.
6. Stock essentials for a long haul. Our PDS is well established with last mile connectivity of ration shops providing access to every household. Let PDS be strengthened further with advanced technology, storage & delivery systems & expanded list of products.
7. All buildings should be earthquake, fire & flood proof.
8. High internet capacity to handle large volume of data transfer during lockdowns & floods.
9. Promotion of kitchen gardens in a major way.

Financial support to overcome the impact:

We have never ever seen a complete physical standstill of all the economic activities throughout the world for a prolonged period, disrupting all the industries, with total hold on import, export, supply chain, banking credit, debt servicing, FDI & most other industries. Without unprecedented support from Govt, most of the companies will stare at bankruptcies. As importance of most of the companies, except the larger ones, is better known to local/state Governments, the support has to come from them, with the Central Govt providing total backing to the local/state Governments with financial & other support.

This disruption will affect private sector in an unprecedented manner, putting their viability in serious doubt; those who survive could continue with the support of lenders & Govt and those who cannot survive but strategically important can be nationalized. In this extraordinary situation, rebuilding the economy & society, as it involves unprecedented spending from the Govt, should address, consider the following factors:

1. How did we get in to this situation of finding ourselves completely inadequate, unprepared & vulnerable to a virus, in spite of so much wealth creation & technological advances?
2. Having a functional strategic & critical infrastructure to face any kind of exigency is the primary requirement for the survival of a country & it's people.
3. Basic necessities of all the people should be met at all times; otherwise, no point in having an organised economic structure.
4. Rebuilding the economy & bailing out private sector & banks are funded by the public purse as always and so the outcome should be oriented towards equitable benefit to all.
5. All kinds of exigencies, including possible second cycle of this pandemic & climate catastrophe have to be factored while rebuilding.

Rebuilding the economy should address all the above to create an equitable, caring & environmentally sustainable economy, by segregating the economic activities in to three segments: essential basic services to its citizens, critical & strategic infrastructure creation and other economic activities; and public sector be the lead and dominant player in the first two segments.

Recommended Financial Support during the impact period:

To cover the basic necessities of every household, the following support is recommended during the impact period of the pandemic:

1. Direct cash distribution of Rs 3000 to a household covering 13.6 Cr families which is under NREGA, 20.4 Cr Jan Dhan women account holders, 8.7 Cr farmers under PM Kisan Yojana & 3 crore senior citizens, disabled and widows among the poor. This will be paid on monthly basis during the impact period. Whoever is left out & needs relief can record it  in a register which would be maintained at each ward and also through mobile & online to receive the cash assistance in a bank account that will be opened in their name.
2. Free grains, dhal & other essential groceries through PDS to the above households during the impact period. 
3. Free gas cylinders for the above families during the impact period. 
4. Rent waiver for the tenants in the above category during the impact period.
5. Electricity bill payment waiver for the above families during the impact period.
6. Interest waiver, EMI & principal holiday for the borrowers belonging to above category during the impact period.
7. Universal healthcare for all the citizens under an insurance scheme, which will be effective post the pandemic also.
8. Subsidized Food Canteens like Amma Unavagam in Tamilnadu all over the country. Support Akshaya Patra Foundation to expand.
9. Rs 1 Cr compensation to medical workers family and any other worker in the front-line, in the event of death during the pandemic. This is to be covered by insurance. Exceptional Monetary compensation to every heathcare worker & medical professionals 
10.  As we will not know the length of the lockdown & social distancing period, arrangements have to be made to manage the incoming harvest requirements. As it involves saving huge quantum of food-grains which is extremely precious now, huge number of harvesters may be required or putting together Manuel harvesting practice with safe distancing under strict supervision of village administration officers. This will also ensure cash in the hands of farm workers & farmers.

Support for Private Sector:

For the private sector companies to have any chance of survival from this paralysis, this period of shutdown have to be considered as holiday period; this is an extraordinary time, so, we need to accommodate extraordinary response; understanding & sacrifices are required from all the stakeholders; steps suggested here are an attempt to make the companies survive this;  to do that, they need to be protected from all dues; workers of all the enterprises are considered together with the common public with respect to relief and if they fall under the categories mentioned above,  Govt is meeting that, as per the recommendation. In addition to the support provided by the Govt to meet the basic necessities, it cannot compensate the private sector's salary bill also. We are at a point in time in history that Governments cannot treat their people differently as we're paying the price for that now. At this stage, we don't know where we're heading, how long the pandemic will last and the strength & weakness of whatever is left. 

Recommended support for private sector:

1. Deferment of principal & interest payment till further orders for all debts. 
2. Deferment of all kinds of dues till further orders 
3. Extension of insurance coverage for the period without payment of premium.
4. Nationalize strategically important, but financially failing enterprises.
5. Fast track insolvency process for companies whichever want to exit; provide relief to the promoters by allowing them to participate in the process.
6. A Job Guarantee Program to provide transitional jobs to the unemployed till they are hired back by private sector.

Govt & the banking system will incur huge cost on account of the private sector during this period. In addition, Job Guarantee program & building the infrastructure will require large continuous infusion of money by the Govt, so, large financial support for private sector is not recommended.

Recommendation for the Govt:

With almost all the workers out of work, supply lines severely crippled, including international supply chain, finances in tatters and the net result of policies & institutional structure leaving us with lacking critical & strategic infrastructure & vulnerable society (which suddenly make us realize that we're cheated all along by the system), the present standstill, as we're going to restart from scratch, provides an opportunity to build an economy which meets the basic needs of all and build the infrastructure to meet this & the exigencies; this will also suit the huge informal workforce we have; a major unexpected window of opportunity is the chance to shift whole hog to green economy from fossil fuel.

We reiterate again & again that this is an opportunity for the Govt to build an economy based on a model which respects & recognise all its citizens by providing equal space for them to be part of the economic activity with a decent living wage, makes available basic necessities for all and have critical & strategic infrastructure in all sectors.

A transitional Job guarantee program is a simple & perfect solution to achieve the above and create all the needed infrastructural assets at the local level. 

Private sector is the mainstay of the economy of a country and significant provider of employment. For the private sector, profit maximisation is the driving force, but for the public sector, social and strategic objective is vital. During this crisis, the limitations of private sector is totally exposed, with the public sector coming to the rescue of every stakeholder with a massive support. Govt is the currency issuer,  policy maker and whenever other sectors fail to manage on their own, acts as the rescuer with unprecedented bailouts, quantitative easing, relief & stimulus packages. 

Between two crises, that is between bailouts, the institutional structure, consisting of Govt policies, regulations, taxes, physical infrastructure, State money, the credit money, payment & settlement systems (supporting annual volume of at least $1000 trillions globally) and central bank's lender of last resort function, paved the way for creation of the hierarchical society with all the weaknesses we have now; finally, after many such instances, it ended up in a never-ever-seen crisis like this.

Rather than repeating this again and ending up like this to helplessly face death at any time, Governments should use the power of its currency creation capacity and economic policies for what it is meant for, that is, for the benefit of everyone, by opting for a model which ensures basic necessities to everyone & have critical and strategic infrastructure in place to face any kind of exigency, as the threat of climate catastrophe or second coming of this virus or any other pandemic is a real possibility.

India's 80% of  workforce is employed in informal sector. We are all well aware of the lack of rural infrastructure needed for self-sustaining & self-reliant rural India. That is why, we see a huge migration from rural India. Food & water security are our two most important needs. India currently stores only 6% of its annual rainfall or 253 BCM, while the assessed total water requirement is 1447 BCM by 2050. Nearly 80% of rainfall flows unutilised to the sea, causing disastrous floods, while 99 districts of the country are drought prone. Solution is the inter-basin transfer of water. Food Parks in villages with warehouse, cold storage & food processing can supply grains, vegetables, fruits, spices, seeds, milk & milk products. Such planned programs in food, water & other sectors together can be executed with a job guarantee program. Energy security will get a major boost with the promotion of solar power in villages. So, this crisis is providing an opportunity to engage the rural workforce and the migrants who came back to villages to create self-reliant rural India, which also is an answer to the long lasting rural distress.

As both demand & supply has simultaneously come to a standstill, unless it is faced head-on with the enormous money power of a fiat currency issuing government, it will lead to disastrous result. That is why, many Governments have launched trillions of dollors worth relief & stimulus packages.

Recommendations:

1. State Governments are going to face severe loss of revenue (State Governments are currency users, unlike the Central Govt which is a currency issuer) and they have to sustain public service; to compensate lose of revenue & sustain public service, we recommend Rs 1000 per capita grant to State Governments.
2. A transitional job guarantee program for all.
3. Build critical & strategic infrastructure.
4. Rural infrastructure to create self-sustaining rural India, with food, water & energy security.

The pandemic taught us that while Central Governments formulate policies &:issue currency, it is the State Governments which administers the day-to-day operations, bringing out the best in leaders at the state & local level, showing many leaders to the country. We need them as local & state governments have to be the implementing agency for the job guarantee program.

Let us create a strong, self sufficient India which serves all its citizens.