Begging & Payer's Dilemma!

Two parties. One transaction. Different levels of exchange. The world runs around this simple funda! Few examples: Ideal Business - mutually profitable with equal exchange. Donation & true love - Giving without expecting anything back. Greed - Expecting more than what you give. Stealing - Taking without the knowledge of the counter-party. Begging - Getting without any obligation!

Similar to Prisoner's dilemma, (With 2 players, optimal solution is possible with cooperation. But the players end-up with a sub-optimal solution due to lack of trust, since trying to cooperate when the other competes has higher penalty!) Payer's dilemma is a major issue - Yes, both might lead to suboptimal solutions.

Payer	Beggar
		No need to beg	Need to beg (and he begs!)
	Don’t pay	Ideal, if Beggar resolves not to beg	You didn’t help the needy!
	Pay	Laziness supported & beggar gets free lunch, if he decides to beg	Sub-optimal, but might be inevitable

The dilemma is to pay or not - by paying a beggar, am I helping him? Or is that I am promoting begging as a profession and impede his learning of any skill? It's a very tricky situation! But it's clear that begging is good for none: Beggar - no descent lifestyle, no sustained income, he doesn't develop any skill; Payer - Loses money without getting any service in return; Country - No net addition to the GDP. Hmmm.. Seems ideal to have no begging. Is it possible? If so, how? Will a ban on begging help? To answer these, we need to answer the very basic question - why does he beg?

People beg because of (i) Incapability - physical or mental (ii) Unemployment - Unfit for existing jobs or unavailability of jobs (iii) Laziness. [There is a fuzzy fourth category, predominantly that of monks who does it in the name of spirituality - Some genuine monks beg because working for a living is inferior to them; fake monks will come under the "laziness" category. This fourth category goes beyond the scope of this post!] Among these, lazy beggar is the troubled category - the payer's resolution is simple (it shouldn't be supported) but the solution is tough - You can take a horse to water, but never make it drink, esp when it has determined to not drink! Also, it's not possible to differentiate the beggars - lazy beggars hurt themselves or lie or put up a false image to earn people's sympathy. Yes, "information asymmetry" problem!

Looking at the reasons, two things become clear. First, a simple ban might not work - it might backfire with still worse consequences (a banned beggar may die / suicide or turn into a thief / anti-social element) and/or turn out to be ineffective (It would be a rule on paper like the prohibition of smoking in public in Chennai). Second, the beggar is not the sole reason for begging - the payer, the society and the government are all parties to it. Unless there is a concerted effort from all, it's tough to uproot begging.

I believe the begging problem can be reduced (if not eradicated) gradually in 2 stages (if not overnight):

1. FIRST, Slowly and gradually move the existing beggars away from begging pool
• Plan and create "Beggars Rehabilitation Program" with funding and support from Government, NGOs and Wealthy individuals (if required, add a new cess for income exceeding a certain limit). Register all the existing beggars in every town, city and village under this program
• Categorize the beggars - The "incapable" has to be sent to the corresponding NGO or Government sponsored helping homes; The "unemployed" should be arranged for skill-development programs; IT could be leveraged to create a database of these people and it would be an ideal CSR initiative for companies to employ people from this database. Lazy beggars should be given strict warning to not beg, else face severe punishments (Remember the Tamil movie Anniyan!)
• The program could also create centers in every town (similar to government departments or NGOs) - People who want to help the beggars should donate to the centers than directly to the beggars to avoid the "information asymmetry" problem.
  
2. SECOND, Stop the inflow of people into begging population
• This calls for bigger things - Efficient, Good & Incorrupt Government; Zero Child Labor; Marginally Low (Zero is bad for economy!) Unemployment
  
• Build / Improve homes for "incapable" category & "skill-development" centers
  
• Set a future date for complete elimination of begging
• Creation of Beggar's helpline - If you happen to see a new beggar, call them up!

All of these may seem ambitious, but where there is a will, there will be a way!

I am sure government officers, politicians, people dedicated to & socked in social service would have better information, context and ideas to make a beggar-free India than this computer-science & management graduate. I wish they come forward to make it a reality! :)