The Employment Policy
Approach & Objectives
Since the First Five Year Plan, the government has stressed the urgent need of eliminating unemployment. As unemployment increased over time, the government too stepped up its efforts in fighting the evil. . Since the unemployment situation is multidimensional, the government policy has been multi-faceted.
The policy, in general, expects employment generation to take place as a consequence of growth. An important aspect of the policy is its emphasis on the creation of facilities for self-employment. This is largely for two reasons. In the first place, it is recognized that the expansion of wage/salary employment in the public sector and the private organised sector will not absorb a significant part of the labour force.
Secondly, even at present, the majority of the workforce is self-employed. (54 per cent are self-employed as against 46 per cent who work on wages and salaries). Another characteristic of the policy is its emphasis on productive employment. This implies two things. One, the priority is for the programmes which result in output/income. Two, preference is given to schemes that lead to the creation of assets in schemes like the National Rural Employment Programme.
In respect of the employment generation, the policy has largely been to estimate the employment that would result from the growth of various sectors (envisaged in the various plans) rather than the setting of employment targets. The Seventh Plan, for example, calculated the employment potential to grow at 4 per cent per year as a result of the targeted levels of economic activity in the five-year period of 1985-90.
The Eighth Plan, (1992-97) projected employment to increase at the rate of about 3 per cent per annum. In the case of some special employment programmes, meant for the weaker sections of population like the National Rural Employment Programme, Rural · Landless Employment Guarantee Programme, now merged in the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana) targets are fixed.
These programmes have, however, been envisaged as interim measures to help the disadvantaged sections of people, till they find work in the general development processes of the economy The growth rate of the labour force is expected to rise to the peak level of 2.51 per cent per annum during the Ninth Plan period. Hence, there is an urgent need to employ these additions to the labour force.
The Plan document also underlines this need as it states, “the growth of labour force accelerates in the Ninth Plan period in comparison to the preceding decades which requires a commensurate increase in the pace of creation of additional work opportunities in this period”. However, the Ninth Plan has no’ strategy for employment creation. It merely hopes that the targeted 6.5 per cent per annum increase in GDP during the Plan period will do the trick.
Programmes & Measures
Since the policy aims at reducing unemployment of various types, the programmes devised and measures adopted have been many and of varied nature. In respect of employment-related to the expansion of economic activities, much was expected from the increase in the volume of work itself. In quite a several cases, deliberate choices have been made in favour of labour-intensive projects.
These include the medium / small/ancillary units which normally are labour-intensive. These have been promoted through several measures such as reservation of a large number of products exclusively for the small sector; preferential buying of their products by the government; supply of inputs at concessional. prices; facilities for marketing of their products etc.
Quite a high priority has been accorded to agricultural development through large allocations for irrigation, improvements în inputs etc. More jobs have sought to be created through increases in crop intensity, the extension of new technologies to low productivity regions etc. Activities with high employment content like construction of roads, houses etc. have also been promoted.
Special employment programmes
Some special employment programmes for self and wage employment have been in operation in rural and urban areas. These include the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM), Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY), Nehru Rozgar Yojana (NRY), the Scheme for Self Employment to the Educated Unemployed Youth (SEEUY) etc. Some of these schemes are meant for the poor like the landless agricultural labour, vulnerable people in the drought-prone areas etc.
An important feature of these schemes is that they are area and group-specific. Another feature is that most of these schemes are target-oriented. Most of the projects under these schemes are labour-intensive, quick. maturing and result in the creation of production assets. Self-employment assistance, in many of these programmes, is, both in financial and non-financial firms.
In general, all the measures for development will also create large opportunities for employment for the educated. Schemes like Operation Flood, Fishery Projects etc., will take in a very large number of educated persons for infrastructural support, technical input, supply for milk processing operations etc. Again, there are large openings for these people in the block level planning which requires personnel for the survey, planning, monitoring, evaluation etc.
Minimum Needs Programme will absorb various kinds of professionals in medicine, nutrition etc. No less important is the expansion of job opportunities in the service sector. As a result of increased production in the commodity sector (i.e. agriculture and manufacture), there is bound to be large employment for the educated in such fields as processing, marketing, trading and banking etc.
Here are some notes on Major Employment Programmes