Daily UPSC Mains Question – July 12/2020

GS – 2

Migration is India’s largest and most successful avenue though not an official policy of reducing poverty. Explain.150 Words

In the News:

• Census data shows that individuals migrating for work rose from 30 million in 2001 to 41 million in 2011. This was the very period when India’s GDP growth skyrocketed to 8% and poverty declined sharply (by 137 million during 2005-12).
•  Assuming each individual migrant supported four more people back home, 164 million people benefited from migration.

Significant numbers:

• A significant number of people have migrated abroad, mostly to the Gulf, and would not show up in census data. But millions of workers fall into this category and total forex remittances to India have been around $80 billion a year.
•  However, the remittances are not all from poor labourers – some are from software engineers and other well-off migrants. The 2001-10 trends would mean an enormous increase in migrants, with or without families.
• The statistics on migrants with the number of people who are likely to benefit from MGNREGA. Migration benefits a much larger number of poor than MGNREGA, and the sums remitted are much larger than MGNREGA outlays.

India – the migrant economy:

• India has a huge migrant economy. The first order of benefit from migration goes towards lifting migrants and their families out of poverty. They bring back a capital surplus that opens new opportunities for families earlier at subsistence levels.
• Out migration from rural UP or Bihar reduces the supply of agricultural workers in these states, increasing wages and lowering poverty there. It also ameliorates worker shortages in the destination economies, raising productivity.
• Migrant workers crowd into townships, small cities, and mega cities and in prosperous rural states. A study by Aajeevika Bureau in five states, Bihar, UP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat found that 60% of migrants and 83% of long distance migrants had not voted in the last election because they were away from home.
• Hence no political parties are prominent in championing their cause. Remarkably, respondents in the Aajeevika Bureau study were on average working in their current location for 10 years. Even long-time migrants find it difficult to register themselves as voters in the cities, and remain excluded from the electoral system.

India’s solar strategy should look at tapping the best globally to make locally. Explain in detail.250 Words

In the News:

• By tapping the energy of the sun to substantially power the economy and everyday life is to be welcomed, because it could help chart a green deal for the future. The case for greater reliance on solar power, for energy and as a path for self-reliant industrialisation, at the inauguration of a 750 MW photovoltaic project at Rewa, in Madhya Pradesh last week.
•  The idea of building a domestic solar manufacturing industry that delivers increasing volumes of quality photovoltaic cells, modules and associated equipment is long in the tooth.

Manufacturing capability:

• India’s installed base of this green power source is about 35 gigawatts (GW), and its projected addition of capacity until 2024 in a COVID-19 affected future is estimated by the industry to be of the order of 50 GW.
•  Viewed against the goals set five years ago for the Paris Agreement on climate, of installing 100 GW of solar power by 2022, there could be a sharp deficit. Combined with low domestic cell manufacturing capacity at 3.1 GW last year, and heavy reliance on China, high ambition must now be supported by aggressive official policy.
• The Chinese story is one of a steady rise from insignificant manufacturing capability in the 1990s, to virtual dominance through active government support in identifying and acquiring top technologies globally, importing critical raw materials such as polysilicon, acquiring solar manufacturers abroad, and investing in third countries with ready capability.
• Importantly, the domestic market was treated with great importance while promoting exports.

Critical opportunity:

• The pandemic presents a critical opportunity for India to plan a green deal, on the lines of what the EU has committed itself to: that future growth and employment should align itself to environmental and sustainability objectives, particularly in energy production, away from dirty fuels such as coal.
• There is no better time than now to make solar energy a strategic sector, giving it as much importance as defence. As the architect of the International Solar Alliance, which attracted about 120 nations at its launch, India needs to show leadership to advance the manufacture and absorption of solar photovoltaic infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries.
• Rapid progress requires a strategic shift to aid competitive domestic manufacturing.