6.9. GOVERNMENT AND EMPLOYMENT GENERATION

You may recall about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005. It promises 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to all rural households who volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The scheme based on this Act is one of the many measures the government has implemented to generate employment for those who are in need of jobs in rural areas.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was established to ensure that every rural household in India can count on at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment each year. This means that if a household wants to work in unskilled jobs, they have a legal right to receive paid employment for those days. The goal is to alleviate poverty and provide a safety net for rural families, ensuring they can earn a livelihood through guaranteed work.

Imagine a family living in a village with limited job opportunities. If the father is unable to find work in nearby shops or farms, under the MGNREGA, he can apply for jobs like building roads or canals for 100 days a year. This provides a reliable source of income, helping the family manage their expenses despite the challenges they face in finding other jobs.

Since Independence, the Union and State governments have played an important role in generating employment or creating opportunities for employment generation. Their efforts can be broadly categorised into two — direct and indirect.

The government's role in employment generation can be categorized into two main approaches: direct and indirect. Directly, the government creates jobs by hiring people for various roles in public services, such as in security, health, and education. Indirectly, it fosters job creation by supporting industries and companies, providing them with resources and frameworks to expand their operations and hire more workers, which ultimately boosts the economy.

Think of a local park that is maintained by the government. The exact number of gardeners and workers employed there represents direct job creation. However, if the government builds a new public park, construction companies hired for development might also lead to indirect job creation, as they would need to employ workers—like laborers and engineers—thus expanding employment opportunities in the area.

Many programmes that the governments implement, aimed at alleviating poverty, are through employment generation. They are also known as employment generation programmes. All these programmes aim at providing not only employment but also services in areas such as primary health, primary education, rural drinking water, nutrition, assistance for people to buy income and employment generating assets, development of community assets by generating wage employment, construction of houses and sanitation, assistance for constructing houses, laying of rural roads, development of wastelands/degraded lands.

Employment generation programmes are designed to help people secure jobs while also addressing other essential services like healthcare, education, and sanitation. These initiatives are vital in supporting the livelihoods of people, especially in rural areas, while simultaneously working on community development projects that benefit the entire population.

Consider a village where a sanitation project is implemented. When workers are hired to build toilets and improve drainage, they earn wages while also helping society. This project serves a dual purpose by providing employment to the workers and promoting better health conditions for the community, demonstrating how such programmes can significantly impact both individual lives and the wider society.

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