so what now TEDx is your school hi you
guys ready for a change and just pay
attention to the screen this is what I
propose to everybody who is in this room
and is getting a salary that from
tomorrow onwards your salary comes in
some contribution to the Provident Fund
there’s some vouchers that you will get
for food you will get some petrol money
and money to send your kids to school
irrespective of whether you have a car
or you have kids compulsory deduction
into medical insurance and then at the
end of it you will not have any money in
your hand to spend on things that you
want and I also want to tell you that
this particular salary slip has been
designed by the best experts in India
and they are your well-wisher would you
like to accept this change how do you
feel does it feel like childhood but
this is precisely how we are treated
treating 300 million ultra poor people
in India its people like you and me who
decides how the money which is for their
welfare is going to be spent they are
plethora of NGOs government agencies
political parties aid agencies who
basically allocate all these resources
for the poor on their behalf if they
decide whether the poor needs a toilet
or they need a school whether towards
should go and do vaccinations or
something like this have you also
wondered when it comes to giving things
why is that people are always handing
out an old piece of clothing or they are
giving something which is they don’t
need it’s their crash because in our
country when it comes to working with
poor
and you know helping them our benchmarks
are really really low we believe that
something is better than nothing and no
wonder so many years after independence
we are not able to lift extreme poor
people out of poverty I work in the
social sector and I thought that
organized aid an organized way of doing
development work is more effective but
that is really not the case on any
development project which do you see
whether it is giving cows and goats or
it’s a cow in a good kind of a project
behind every one such cow or goat they
are consultancies project overheads
worth four cups and sometimes you have
to stop and ask this question is the
value that we are adding into the
project more than four cows maybe yes
maybe not now when it comes to working
with the poor in the world they’re
basically two big groups yeah one group
things that the poor are poor because
they’re uneducated yeah they make really
really poor decisions yeah they cannot
be trusted yeah so they need us to tell
them what they need yeah and then we
give it to them and not only that we can
trust them with a cow yeah we can trust
them with a training program what we
cannot trust them with money on the
other hand there are some people who
believe that poor people are just like
you and me they probably unfortunate
yeah they are intelligent they really
know what they need so instead of giving
them a cow if we were to give them money
and the choice to decide what they
should do with this money so maybe
they’ll go and buy a cow or maybe some
of them will go and start a small
business and earn an income out of it
some of them might decide to put more
food on the table or spend this money on
education or
or something yes so these are the two
distinct groups they are the ones who
are basically forming how the work
around poor and poverty elevation in the
earth for the ultra boy is going to kind
of work out so now in India in a state
called multiple dish Siva and UNICEF
actually did a pilot and what they did
in this pilot was that they identified
families and they gave money to each
household member yeah and then they
stopped and they then measured what
happened and to the surprise they found
that you know the income generation
activities in the village you know went
up um the money was given to both men
and women so women had more our
decision-making when it comes to doing
you know things in their in their
household they also found that there was
no increase in the consumption of
alcohol or gambling or using this money
for for tobacco elsewhere in the world
like in Africa of this a pioneering
charity in the u.s. called give directly
they’ve been running large cash
transfers or you know giving free money
to the poor in in Africa and they have
found that that every thousand dollars
at the giveaway yeah there was
substantial increase in income savings
the well-being of the family year on
year closer home in Sri Lanka when money
was given to small entrepreneurs as a
grant yeah the returns on that grants
after five years or close to two hundred
percent so not only this seemed to kind
of work this is also sustainable enough
for a moment I want you to think as to
what does it feel to be really poor now
imagine that you’re you’re doing
something really really important yeah
maybe you have an exam or you have a
presentation to make or something like
that but your mind is constantly
somewhere else yeah you are not able to
focus yeah you are really worried about
where your next meal is going to come
what are you going to do today will you
get some pages today or not these are
the things that you’re worried about you
really cannot focus on the future you
cannot attend the training program you
not a capacity building program or do
something else it’s almost like a
computer which is a fairly good computer
but you have too many programs that this
computer is is running so the screen
freezes this is not a bad computer so
you cannot thinker with the software if
you now want this computer to work maybe
it is time to add some memory and
hopefully the computer will start
working again in the context of the poor
money is that memory so if be able to
give them money maybe that will increase
their bandwidth now they are not worried
about here and now they can start
worrying about future how should they
come out of poverty how should they
really really improve their lives yeah
so I have spent about 15 years in the
social sector and and I have really
asked this probable proverbial question
to myself am i worth more than four cows
is the value that I add into the whole
system is it more than 4,000 and it
seems like at least in this case uncle
is not buddy then pass it seems like
four cows are better than one of me
actually doing in the something in the
field so I believe that giving money for
free to the poor it’s a very very good
idea yeah economies call it with a very
very fancy name it’s called an
unconditional cash transfer I believe
that poor people are very very
enterprising they trustworthy they
precisely know what they need they don’t
need me to tell them what they need and
then give it to them if we were to give
unconditional money to the poor over a
period of two to three years three
hundred million Indians then they will
find out innovative ways to to come out
of a poverty so this is what i am trying
to experiment through this initiative
called cash reef which is about giving
unconditional money free money no
strings attached to the poor people so
what we are going to do is we are going
to give 96
Ruby’s to every household in a village
this is equivalent to their two years of
income over seven installments we will
not tell them how to use this money yeah
we will probably step back and then see
what happens yeah and maybe you know we
are in for a for a surprise because we
believe that poverty is really not a
lack of character or ability it is lack
of cash so it’s high time that we fix it
we give money to the poor unconditional
thank you very much [Applause]