The shape of an urban employment guarantee (Helping workers and the economy through Multiplier Effect)

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 The shape of an urban employment guarantee (Helping workers and the economy through Multiplier Effect)

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• A massive jobs crisis : India's jobs crisis saw unemployment rate touch a 45-year high of 6.1% in 2017-18, as per the leaked PLFS of NSSO, a report the govt. did not release. The real problem is in Indian cities and towns – the urban areas - where informal sector dominates, and low wages and precarity is the norm. [ Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) of the National  Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) ]
• Engines of growth : Govts. treat cities in a utopian manner - engines of growth - and not what they are in India actually! 

1. The 1997 programme "Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana" included an urban wage employment component.
2. All those are dropped, and while there is a problem with jobs, but the focus is on skilling and entrepreneurship.

• Scale of the problem : India has 4041 urban areas with an urban local bodies (ULB) functioning - either a Municipal Corporation, Municipal Council or Nagar Panchayat. 

1. The mega programmes like AMRUT or Smart Cities have touched just a few of them
2. Most ULBs lack functional capacity - financial or human
3. Uncontrolled growth is harming the "ecological commons", thereby aggravating the issue

• Time for employment guarantee in urban areas : It is time to bring such a programme.

1. It will address underemployment and unemployment
2. It will bring public investment in towns to improve infra and services quality (and restore urban commons)
3. It will skill the youth and augment ULB capacity

• A common minimum programme (CMP) : Will this be part of the CMP for opposition parties in 2019 elections? A new initiative is the MP govt.'s "Yuva Swabiman Yojana" providing employment for skilled / unskilled workers in urban youth.
• Shape of an UEGP : 

1. Give urban residents a legal right to work and ensure the Right to Life u/Art 21 of Constitution
2. Make it demand-driven, and give funds at start of every FY from Centre and state governments
3. Wages to be disbursed locally by the ULB
4. UEGP to cover all ULBs with a population < 1 million, to stop the migration to larger metros
5. It won't affect MGNREGA, but work in parallel
6. Will be much broader than MGNREGA and offer multiple types of works

• Many will benefit : Urabn informal workers with limited education can get jobs in areas like 

1. Public works (maintaining buildings, roads, footpaths and bridges) for at least 100 days, at Rs.500 per day.
2. Green jobs - including creation or rejuvenation of urban commons like woody areas, parks, waste land, water bodies etc.
3.  Jobs to address the care deficit - helping the children, disabled and the elderly 

• Skilling and cost : Urban youth with higher education can be skilled appropriately, and the total cost of such an UEGP can be 1.7 - 2.7% of GDP per year. It will generate 3 to 5 crore jobs. And it must be administered locally as per the 74th amendment, 1992.
• Multiplier effect : Such a programme will boost local demand in small towns, improve quality of infrastructure, build skills and entrepreneurship etc. The time has come!
• Summary : To address the massive urban jobs problem, a full-fledged urban employment guarantee programme (UEGP) is now needed, parallel to the MGNREGA.

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