ECO ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS
New Delhi, 24 November 2005
Creating More Jobs
NEED FOR LONG-TERM
STRATEGY
By Dr. Vinod Mehta
The UPA Government had promised to create more jobs
under the Common Minimum Programme (CMP). It has been in power for almost one
and a half year and we have yet to see the results. Generally speaking, increase in the level of
investment will generate more jobs in the country, but it will not guarantee
generation of more jobs on its own. People are already talking of jobless
growth.
The time, however, is ripe to devise strategies, both
at the local and national levels, which lead to the creation of more jobs
without resulting in mass migration of population from village/towns to large
cities. Manufacturing sector is growing and the rate of growth is around 7 per
cent. Many economists are of the view that we can sustain this growth rate in
the coming years.
It is common knowledge that about 74 per cent of the
population lives in rural areas and 26 per cent in urban areas. In urban areas
the problem of unemployment is not acute; it is serious mainly in rural
areas. The sheer size of the urban
population in metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai provide many job opportunities, more so in
the unorganized sector. There is so much demand for various kinds of labour and
services that anyone looking for a job can find some work even if it may not be
to one’s liking; the labour that migrates to these areas is bound to find some
work.
It is a different matter that unregulated migrations
leads to many problems in urban areas, like emergence of slums, increase in
crime rate and so on but which needs to be checked. But the real challenge of generating
employment is in smaller towns and villages where the size of the population is
so small that there are hardly any opportunities for generating remunerative
employment. Setting up of factories or small businesses does not make any
economic sense; where there are no factories or workshops the demand for labour
is almost nil. Again the total population of the area is so small that it does
not make economic sense to provide services or generate some kind of a work in
these areas.
According to the latest Census figures, out of a
total number of 5,88,781 villages, 2,90,093, i.e. about 50per cent, have
population less than 1,000. The number of villages having population between
1,000 and 2,000 is 1,14,395; the number of villages with population between
2,000 and 5,000 is 62,915; for villages with population between 5,000 and 10,000,
the number is 10,597 and the number of villages with over 10,000 population is
2,779. It means that for 70 per cent of the villages the size of the population
is less than 2,000.
What impact can it
have on employment generation?
For one you cannot make massive investments as it would not be able to
reap any economies of scale. It will not be able to supply the required skilled
or semi-skilled labour. The demand for services from the villagers will not be
enough to provide job opportunities. This means that the demand factor will
also not work. Thus there will be almost nil opportunities for young people of
these villages to find jobs even in the unorganized sector. This problem is
acute in the North-East.
In other countries, the rural population is small
while urban population is very large. Less than 25 per cent of the population is in rural areas. A large
number of jobs are being created in the service sector, followed by the
manufacturing sector. (Even though some of the services are being outsourced by
these countries, it has also been noticed that some of the affected employees
are also migrating to the developing countries.) Therefore, the employment
opportunities are relatively more in these countries than in a country like India where the
population is overwhelmingly rural. It is a sheer challenge how to generate
employment in areas where the population is less than 2000.
Therefore, the Government will have to have some kind
of a strategy to generate employment in these villages in the coming years. One
of the ways to overcome this situation would be to club these villages into
viable economic zones on the basis of some economic criteria before making
investment in these areas. Most of the activities may be centred around food
processing of various agricultural products, including milk and milk products
and smaller workshops, production units etc.
For instance, the Government can help these villages
to start food processing and marketing cooperatives, start small repair and
maintenance workshops to attend to repair of mechanical equipments, to set up
cold storages etc., which in turn will raise employment opportunities for the
local people both in the organized as well as the unorganized sector.
The second equally important point is to link all
these villages with towns and metropolitan cities with all-weather good quality
roads. This will help the rural people from these villages to take their
products to nearby towns and metropolitan cities where there is a market for
their products. Good roads can
facilitate the to- and-fro movement of
labour on daily basis to nearby towns where they are bound to find some
work. Once these villages are linked by
good roads many of the companies in the private sector may find it economical
to procure their raw materials or outsource their work from these places. They
may even come forward to set up small units.
Large-scale investment does not mean that one put in
big money and set up bigger projects. Large-scale investment also means that
one spreads out investment all over and helps people to engage in meaningful
economic activity. Food-for-work programme is not just enough. What is needed
is gainful employment on a sustained basis. This means easy movement of
agricultural and other products from one place to another and easy to-and-fro
movement of labour from village to nearby towns.
In the long run, however, the emphasis will have to
shift from creation of jobs in the agricultural sector to creation of jobs in
manufacturing and service sector. The experience of developed countries shows
that more jobs are created in the non-agricultural sector. Therefore, the
creation of jobs in the rural sector can at best be a medium term solution to
unemployment problem.
The urban renewal mission and the Bharat Nirman
mission for rural India,
apart from creating assets, need to focus on creation of jobs on a large scale.
Mix of appropriate strategies, both at the micro level and the macro level, can
do wonders.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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