New govt gets first task: Job scheme for urban poor

Thousands of poor people living in urban India might soon find jobs if the new government acts on the suggestions from some members of the Planning Commission, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 21, 2009, 01:02:05 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Thousands of poor people living in urban India might soon find jobs if the new government acts on the suggestions from some members of the Planning Commission.

An employment guarantee scheme for the urban poor along the lines of Congress’ National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is required for those living in the cities as many in the unorganised sector have lost their jobs because of an economic slowdown, PM designate Manmohan Singh has been told.

“Over 80 per cent employees in urban areas work in the unorganized sector. Due to the slump, their earnings have fallen to very low levels,” commission member Sayeeda Hamid told HT. “A rag picker in Delhi now works 14 hours, as compared to 9-10 hours earlier, but still earns less. It is a hard time for many like them.” The UPA government has also received similar inputs from Arjun Sengupta, who headed a commission for welfare of the unorganized sector workers.

In its election manifesto, the Congress had promised a new employment scheme for the urban poor. “You can expect something very soon,” cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar has already constituted a committee of secretaries to consider new priorities for the next government and how to fit in the promises made by the Congress in its manifesto.

“The government does not want to delay such a plan despite the budgetary constraints. The PM was concerned about the poor in urban areas and appeared inclined towards a new job scheme,” said a plan panel functionary, who attended the Planning Commission’s meeting with Singh last week.

The PMO has also asked Chandrasekhar to identify early the existing programmes that can be modified or deferred to create space for the induction of new priorities.

The government is looking at modifying about 50 Central government schemes, which had an allocation of more than Rs 500 crore for this year.

The new urban employment scheme would cost up to Rs 2,000 crore in the first phase. In order to accommodate this scheme, some of the ongoing programmes will have to scrapped, said a plan panel official who did not wish to be quoted. “The UPA government did it in 2004 to launch NREGS. It can happen again.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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