Altruism
---------
If today was my last day on earth.. what would I do?? I will eat.. I will eat a full banana leaf meal. And sleep to dose out the high sugar shooting upto my brain from all that rice. but after that.. what will I do??
I will probably try to do something good.
This is also depicted in the western science of psychology as a triangle. The base of the triangle is food, clothing and shelter. The next step above which is shorter than the base is possibly a phone, internet connection and a television set. The next step above is something more innovative which you can buy.. but eventually the thought turns outward.. to what we can do for society. I believe that I am able to think about society and make these posts because my food and shelter is taken care of .. Now that I am taken care of, can I do something that will take care of other people and make them also think outward.. in an altruistic manner at society.
Let us see..
I have already written about the need for pension, a minimum wage and housing or possibly medical insurance for all. Yes, I had talked about a job seeker program like that in australia. But can we make this program slightly adjusted at the edges to make sure that every person has food shelter and clothing. If so.. how? Now let me think. When you think about Food shelter and clothing the first thing that comes to mind is money.. where will I get the money. But from the story of narasimma we know that hiranyam or money is the source of all evil. How do we take that out of the equation? Should govt provide for everything blindly?? If so, who will pay the govt to pay the people? It is said that death and taxes are the only sure things. So can we use taxes?? But how? arent taxes already too high and back breaking to just about everyone?? too many questions.. ok. lets change tack. Ask the basic question. How do we clear the lowest rung of the psychology ladder which is provision of food, clothing and shelter.
obviously we dont want to hand out money or hand out money to a minimum extent so that people dont simply spend the money on drugs and alcohol and sleep on the streets.
So that brings us to the question of what is the minimum money that a person requires.. In australia, the government has calculated it as 1100 to 1500 AUD per month. How did they arrive at this calculation? possibly a delegation from the ministry of external affairs of india could meet with the australian embassy people and figure out a way for knowledge transfer. But it would be ideal to see if we can figure it out ourselves.
so lets see what we have on hand.
we get ration.
we get 100 units free electricity.
I almost forgot.. the amma unavagam or amma kitchen. that was a super duper idea by Jayalalitha our erstwhile CM. But the problem is presentation and the image of 'only for poor people' made it impossible to be a leveler.
of course amma marundagam or amma medical shop is also there but what we need is overall basic medical insurance free of cost to low and middle income people.. not for people whose earnings are above 10 lakh surely.
what amount of money if given on top of this would make it sufficient for a person to live in an average household.
so what is the average rent, if we were to dole out money, we need to know that amount of rental allowance that we need to help people find proper accommodation. In an area like triplicane in metropolitan chennai, it is anywhere between 12000 to 15000 for a 2bhk. In a B centre like coimbatore, the rent is anywhere between 6000 to 8000 for a 2 bhk. But of course, the govt cannot pay for a 2bhk to every family there is, then the govt will deewal aidum.. or will go bankrupt. But can we provide for a 1 bhk rent, say 2500 rs per month for a family of 3 or 4 and with increase in number, a certain increase in assistance like 250rs per additional person in the family. If there are elders in the family, it should be encouraged that they stay as a united or joint family for better development of the younger kids or the next generation.. so some incentive for keeping the elders at home would also be ideal. say a 1000 rs more if grandma and grandpa are at home with you making the rental allowance 3500 rs per month. And this amount should only be dispersed on authentication with a rental agreement and a monthly rental receipt. This can be paid along with the ration in the ration shops after checking the ration card like the last time they paid 2500rs for pongal to every family with a ration card. Just like palm oil is an option in the ration card menu, we can have rental assistance as an option for low income group people in their ration card, this will not be available to others like my family where we are eligible only for sugar, toor dhal and palm oil and nothing else.
the next thing would be medical insurance, so the poor can also get access to medical support. It actually surprises me that in a country of billion people, where the government has a proper income tax regime and is earning money from various sources, private hospitals are able to provide better care and facilities than government hospitals. Isnt this glaring. where did the private hospitals get so much money from? Shouldnt the government be the highest earner of all the people in india? where from a private person or private group found a hospital and bring in all these expensive medical equipment?? Should the government not have more financial might than an individual tax payer or a tax paying trust or company which runs a hospital?
who has the guts to ask the above question in chennai? well, i dont even have to guts to ask why madras was renamed chennai.. but seriously.. how come there are all these expensive hospitals functioning in our cities when the average royapettah general hospital is not able to provide even better quality needles to the syringes they use on babies?
Now.. before being too harsh on the government.. lets take a step back..
this and I mean the above situation has been existing for decades now. This system has to be broken. But who will have the guts to tax the super speciality hospitals appropriately and provide better equipment to all the general hospitals across the state. will it be the current stalin or will it be annamalai in the next elections.. only time will tell. but what is clear is that we in tamilnadu are very much near to a life like in australia, melbourne. All we need is the medical system to be cleared up and the general hospitals should be the ones with better equipment and better doctors. Then we need the small help of rental allowance for the low income group like bus drivers or auto drivers, hotel labourers, market workers. etc.. We already have ration which is available year round therefore we do not need dole money to be handed out by the government like in australia. If we look at singapore, the government hospitals are the best in the country, no private hospital can beat them by as big a margin as can a private hospital in india. But yes, the ration shops quality can be improved.