These are new jobs in India!

Everyone is worried that there is no ‘new jobs’ for Indians; is it so? We have a mindset that job means government job, no accountability, no quality control, plenty of holidays, pension till death.

My maidservant criticised me for using an old model mobile phone. She was holding a big 6 inch by 6 inch big mobile. I asked, “How much it cost you?” “One thousand,” she said. To my surprise, I found the old set in perfect working condition. The daily labourers, including maidservants, are all using smart phones.

Have any of you ever thought of mobile phones as a new employment avenue in India? It’s a million-dollar industry with plenty of jobs to the educated and uneducated. About a few lakhs of phones are stolen or misplaced or lost or broken daily. India is the only country where one gets his mobile phone repaired and refurnished! A moneyed man goes for new model phones or most of them give it as a gift to their servants or parents. There are boys having good business repairing mobiles at the roadside; some sell secondhand mobiles at a throwaway price, one must know where to get it or you fall into police trap! The chargers and the power house are misplaced or lost very frequently; so, made in ‘China ki jai ho’ replaces them. Every day, a few millions of phones are left attached to the chargers in airports, railway platforms and railway compartments!

The boys who steal phones sell them to their bosses depending on the model and appearance of the mobiles and then they are repaired or polished and sold to you for a price. My maid’s iPod phone must have cost its original owner minimum 20 to 30 thousand of rupees. Lots of people are in new “Mobile” job. You get a price immediately. The middleman too gets his share without risk. This way, a mobile industry has been set up in India without any efforts from the government, which gives lakhs of people new employment.

Most of us do not realise that there are plenty of business scopes in India. School and college boys are earning their pocket money through courier service. In Odia, it says Nei ani thoi janile chori bidya bhala (Stealing is good if you can do the job with perfection). The law of average says almost all rich people in the world were thieves or robbers at some time of their life! Like prostitution, stealing others’ materials is also a very good job without much investment. There is another very lucrative job through others’ ATM cards; people have become rich overnight.

(Dr Satpathy is a former Joint Director, SAIL)