India's unemployment rate is likely to decline by as much as 97 basis points by 2028 as the country's economy hits the USD 5 trillion mark, fuelling a rise in employment, a new report said. Unemployment
Cong for centralised monitoring In an effort to deny the opposition of any credit for the UPA government's flagship programme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), a Congress delegation led by its apparent-heir Rahul Gandhi today asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today to introduce centralised monitoring of this ambitious scheme. "Since the Centre allots a large amount of money for this programme, it should monitor how state governments are spending the funds allocated for the NREGA,' the delegation told the Prime Minister when it called on him in his Parliament House office to discuss the implementation of the programme. This suggestion follows serious concern in the Congress that opposition-ruled states are taking credit for this scheme as the state governments are responsible for its implementation although the funds are provided by the Centre. Faced with a series of Assembly polls this year, the Congress does not want the Opposition to walk away with all the accolades and would instead like the party to reap electoral benefit from this scheme, especially since it was launched at its behest. Rahul, who had led a similar delegation to the Prime Minister to press for the universalisation of the programme and succeeded in his mission, said they had given several suggestions on improving the implementation of the programme. "I don't think it is fair to lambast the programme
The 11th Five Year Plan envisages lowering of the unemployment rate to below 5 per cent and seeks to add 58 million jobs by 2012 as the projected increase in labour force during the Plan period is 45 million. According to the Economic Survey, about 47 million jobs were created in 1999-2000 and 2004-05 with an annual average of 9.4 million. The organised sector employment increased from 54.12 million in 1999-2000 to 62.57 million in 2004-05. "The increase has been accounted for by an increase in unorganised workers in organised enterprises from 20.46 million in 1999-2000 to 29.14 million in 2004-05,' it said. However, the survey says that there was a decline in the organised sector employment growth in 1994-2005. This primarily happened due to a decline in employment in the public organised sector. Employment in establishments covered by the Employment Market Information System grew at 1.20 per cent per annum in 1983-94 but recorded a negative growth in 1994-2004. Agriculture The share of agriculture in total employment dropped from 61 per cent to 57 per cent between 1993-94 and 1999-2000. It further fell to 52 per cent in 2004-05. Industry also seems to be witnessing improved relations with workers as the number of strikes and lockout dropped by a whopping 34 per cent in 2007, even as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu continued to top the labour issues chart. The number of strikes and lockouts taken together was down by 33.72 per cent in 2007 as compared to 2006, based on provisional data. In 2007, the total number of strikes and lockouts stood at 285, amounting to a loss of 5.64 million mandays. In 2006, these figures were 430 and 20.32 million respectively. The number of strikes in 2007 was 143, accounting for a loss of 2.20 million mandays, while 143 lockouts resulted in 3.43 million lost mandays. Till November 2007, West Bengal had the maximum number of strikes, followed by Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
Youth brigade: (From left) Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rahul Gandhi, Jitin Prasad, Deepender Hooda, Tejaswini Sri Ramesh and other MPs after meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Thursday. Congress MP and general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday led a delegation of MPs to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for centralised monitoring of the programme under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. There is a demand to expand the scheme from 330 districts to cover all 600 districts. This is the second time that Mr. Gandhi has met the Prime Minister on NREGA, a flagship programme of the UPA government. However, there have been several complaints about the manner in which the programme, meant to give 100 days of employment to one able-bodied person in a rural household, was being implemented by States. "We met the Prime Minister to discuss the implementation of the NREGA. We gave some suggestions on how we can improve its implementation,' Mr. Gandhi told journalists after the meeting. He said they made some points for its better implementation. The delegation sought social auditing mechanisms to identify those who deserved to be in the programme and those who did not. For this, they sought the creation of an IT infrastructure "which would make available at the press of a button the beneficiaries and make for greater accountability,' said party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi. He said the MPs urged the Prime Minister to ensure that NREGA was operationalised nation-wide in a transparent and participatory manner. "Since the programme is largely funded by the Centre, the delegation felt that the Central government should monitor how States were spending allocations and promote mutual learning amongst States by following best practices of specific State governments, such as Andhra Pradesh.' The Prime Minister is understood to have assured the delegation that he would look into their demands. Among those who accompanied Mr. Gandhi were Jyotiraditya Scindia, Tushar Amarsinh Choudhry, Milind Deora, Sandeep Dixit, Deepender Hooda, Jitin Prasad, Pallam Raju, Devavrata Singh, Tejaswini Sri Ramesh and Balashowry Vallabhaneni.
First, it was Congress President Sonia Gandhi publicly indicating to Finance Minister P Chidambaram the direction she wanted the budget to take
While the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government may boast of having successfully implemented the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme across the country, the real story in the national Capital is that graduates and post-graduates have taken to begging due to lack of employment opportunities. They may be indulging in an opprobrium-filled career, but there are the rich and middle-class among them that can put to shame many well-educated people in the country. This news about beggars in Delhi may make the salaried class feel small. A survey conducted by the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) of the Delhi University shows that six graduates and four post-graduates are beggars and they earn anything between Rs 200 and Rs 500 daily, depending on where they pick conduct their business. The best areas are religious sites, major red light intersections and markets. That adds up to Rs 15,000 per month, a salary level that is attained by a post-graduate after slogging for a few years in the normal course of events. According to the survey, eight beggars earn between Rs 200 and Rs 500 per day in the Capital. The DSW interviewed 5,003 beggars to take stock of the begging menace in the city following the direction of the Delhi High Court last year. As per the survey, out of the 506 beggar respondents who were literate, 321 (9-10 per cent) were educated up to the primary level followed by 175 (4.56 per cent) beggars who were educated up to the secondary level. The survey reports that beggars earn anywhere between Rs 50 to Rs 500 per day. There are approximately 58,570 beggars in the State, and the majority are from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with Haryana, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Delhi also making a fair contribution. Interestingly, most of the beggars who were interviewed were aware of the fact that beggary had been made illegal by the Government. Around 54.13 per cent beggars responded that they were aware that begging was illegal while the rest of the others said they did not know It also shows that either the beggars are unafraid of the law or that it is not being implemented properly. For many, asking for alms was a family profession,only a few said they were forced into it by someone else or were part of a gang. A large majority live on pavements (1,082), near temples (644) and under bridges (406). Although the department is still in the process of finding out about those who have a physical deformity, whether someone actually caused it or if it was genetic or due to a disease. That they were opting for begging as the best career option can also be gauged from the fact that their age category was between 13 and 19 years. Surely, they could have done some other work, but chose this particular mode of earning a living as it generated greater cash on a regular basis plus and did not entail much physical exercise.
The All Assam Gramin Sramik Santha (AAGSS) and the Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Krishan Sramik Sabha (KANCKSS) have submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister through the office of the Deputy Commissioner demanding an CBI inquiry into the alleged NREGA scam involving issue of job cards which came to light after a Comptroller and Auditor General interim report. The organizations have alleged that original candidates who applied for the job cards have been ignored. They have demanded that the State Government hold a special session of the State Assembly to discuss the failure of the implementation of the NREGA scheme and issue a White Paper on the matter. The memorandum stated that there must be strict legally enforceable provisions whereby 100 days salary is cut from the pay of panchayat and block officers if 100 days job guarantee and payment of minimum wages is not ensured. It also stated that the policy of restricting the poor to a pre-fixed "BPL quota' be rolled back and publish a fresh list based on comprehensive ground survey. It also demanded that job cards must be issued to all poor families who demands it. The scheme must also guarantee 200 days of work per family in a year and make the number of job-card holders the basis for budgetary allocation for NREGA. Both the AAGSS and KANCKSS have stated that if the Government ignore their demands they would resort to an agitational programme from March 1.
The economy of Madhya Pradesh is largely natural resource driven, leveraging the state's advantage in agriculture and mineral resources. The key industries and sectors where Madhya Pradesh has competitive strength include cement, textiles, mining and food-processing. To give a fillip to industrial development in the State, the Madhya Pradesh government has decided to establish a SEZ in the industrially backward Hargarh village of Sihora tehsil, Jabalpur district, in Mahakaushal region of the State. The work on setting up the SEZ is on in full swing and the blueprint for it is ready. The SEZ will be formally inaugurated during the Investors' Meet to be held in Jabalpur. The Industries Department has proposed to build the SEZ on 623 acres of land in Hargarh. While 250 acres of the land is being dedicated to an SEZ on mineral and mineral-based products, a similar area of land has been earmarked for a SEZ dedicated to agro and food products. The rest of the land will be developed as an industrial area. The proposal for the mineral-based SEZ has already been sent to the Central government while the proposal for agro and food products SEZ is being prepared by the Industries Department. The mineral-based SEZ will have a budget of Rs 158.10 crore and will take three years to develop. The units that are likely to be a part of mineral-based SEZ are iron ore units, granite, marble processing units and fire clay units. A lot of work is being done in these fields in the Mahakaushal region. The preparations for the inauguration are in full swing. The empty fields of Hargarh are being cleaned up and the Pan Umaraiya road and a link road to the inauguration spot is being built rapidly. Work is also in progress on the National Highway between Sihora and Jabalpur. The inauguration will be done on February 15 with Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan taking part in the Bhoomi pujan ceremony. In fact, SEZ is one of the main focus areas of the two-day Investors' Meet in Jabalpur. The SEZ is likely to have a lot of positive spin-offs for the region. With the establishment of the SEZ, export companies will set up offices and complexes in Jabalpur creating opportunities for employment. Also, the air traffic to Jabalpur will get a fillip and, in turn, taxi and hotel services will gain from increased human traffic. The ancillary units and factories in Jabalpur and Katni regions will also gain from the SEZ, besides improvement in the industrial environment in Sihora region. Another major gain will be in terms of employment generation. Nearly 8,300 people will get employment in mineral-based SEZ. The SEZ will thus be a boon for skilled manpower in Jabalpur and for unskilled labour of Sihora and Hargarh, there will be work available. The state goernment has already developed a greenfield SEZ at Indore and its experience in that venture is certain to stand it in good stead in Jabalpur.
THE National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is now in its second year. It already covers more than half of rural India
An exhaustive social audit of the much talked about National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in Jhalawar district of Rajasthan has revealed large-scale fraud in material supplies, extortion of money for job cards, dead people registered on muster rolls, and lack of transparency in the execution of works. However, the implementation of the NREG Act has led to an impressive employment generation in Manohar Thana tehsil of the district, according to a parallel survey undertaken by a research team from the G. B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad.
Union rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh has advised the state governments to ensure conducive environment for the effective implementation of Centrally-sponsored rural employment schemes, like National Rural Employ ment Guarantee Act (NREGA).
