Page 104 - Abhivruddhi

4. Strengthening Social Sphere
CYDA’s grassroot experiences and field visits have highlighted that
meeting the financial requirements of the family of a small entrepreneurs
often impact the cashflow of their business. It is therefore essential that
lifecycle needs are identified and they use better financial management
skills to save for these planned expenditures. Strengthening social sphere
plays an important part of the total ecosystem so that a small entrepreneur
uses the surplus for its development and growth. They can contribute to
the economy better if family needs do not usurp their business plans.
4.1 Access to quality education
Continuing education of children of entrepreneurs is another major
challenge faced by the unorganised sector and one of the financial drains
is paying fees to get quality education for their children. Indian education
is divided into two parts private and government education, the ratio is
5:7 respectively. Due to insufficient infrastructure and lack of teacher
capacities the parents prefer paying for private school education and
also for private tuitions which lead to borrowings from informal sources.
However post the pandemic, according to the latest Annual Survey of
Education (ASER) [4] there is a clear shift from private to government
schools, a big surge in number of children taking private tuitions. A
possible direct impact of the pandemic - causing large-scale migration
and financial constraints - is the shift out of children from private schools
and the increase in government school enrolment across age groups,
gender and grades. The major challenge is for the government schooling
system to deliver with much higher enrolment. There is an increased
reliance on paid tuition classes which has been a financial drain on the
unorganised sector. As many as 40% children from classes 1 to 12 now
take tuition classes, up from 28.6% in 2018. The trend is seen across
children enrolled in both government and private schools and is much
higher in households where parents are in the ‘low education category’
4.2 Access to healthcare services
India has nearly 30% or 42 crore of its population devoid of any health
insurance with actual numbers being higher due to gaps in the existing
scheme and overlap between the schemes, as stated by NITI Aayog.
Any medical emergency in the family leads to using their small savings,
accessing loans at exorbitant rates and at times also withdrawing the
capital from the business leading to lower turnover and in some cases this
leads to closure of a profitable business. “Low government expenditure
on health has constrained the capacity and quality of healthcare services

104