Empowering India

A small update related to Babin's earlier post.

On a larger scale, in comparison to the Kudumbasree and EDC, the Government of India under the leadership of Manmohan Singh and P.Chidambaram, and Sonia Gandhi ofcourse, has embarked on a never-before project - The Employment Guarantee Scheme.

The sheer scale and size of this project is amazing, not to mention the possibilities and extent to which it can impact the poor in India.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, 2004 promises wage employment to every rural household, in which there are volunteers to do unskilled manual work. Through this Bill the government, aims at removing poverty by assuring at least 100 days' employment.

According to WHO statistics, more than 30% of Indians live Below the Poverty Line (BPL) - the cut off at which this is calculated varies and hence in effect the percentage might be higher than this.

Thus the money required to fund this scheme is a whopping Rs. 40,000 to 50,000 crore! Our FM is quite confident of meeting this allocation, and in fact gave almost Rs.24,000 crore for the project.

Contrary to the pessimists, which naturally include the Leftists who are supposed to be pro-poor, the scheme is effectively being implemented at the grass root levels with the determination and inspiration of many Indians - rich and poor.

Despite being not directly involved with the scheme, nor being an economist, I have strongly believed in the scheme for whatever I could make out about it and these are phenomenal schemes and ideas which we all should whole-heartedly welcome. Like I said earlier, the very message they convey is so important - you get paid for working, you get everything if you help build the nation - and not for sitting idle or shouting slogans and conducting hartals.

I hope the next phase of the scheme includes Kerala - not because there are plenty under the BPL, but there are plenty of people who are committed to be unemployed-by-choice. Who would rather hang out at the bus-stops, join marches, loot, steal, strike than work.

I wish more and more people would realise what good, educated, progressive minded and visionary leaders can do to our nation; as compared to the narrow minded, always-opposing, pessimistic looting lot. Just imagine, the Left parties are busy organising protest marches and hartals against Bush's visit (LDF has called for hartal in Kerala on March 02,2006) - apart from throwing peoples lives out of gear and causing losses for the economy I really wonder what these idiots gain. Oh, I am mistaken. There are geniuses among us who still vote for them for these gimmicks.

Today I got an email from a friend. He sent me the transcript of an email from a district collector who is involved in the implementation of the EGS at the grassroots. I was so inspired and touched by his words.

the EGS is presently under implementation in 200 districts in INDIA and in Andhra pradesh it is being implemented in 13 districts.My district chittoor is also one of them and i am the project officer in my division.so far we have received around 2 lakh applications for 100 days assured job. at present we are conducting gram sabhas for preparation of shelf of works. we are identifying works that are to be carried out in the field os the weaker sections of the society. all are done on a participatory mode and hence there will be absolute transparency. there will be no malpractices as (commonly perceived). the checks are being put in place by people's participation. we've prepared a software with help of TCS for the preparation of Job cards and estimates of the works. at present two computers each are being installed in the mandals. i've got 62 systems today and we are installing them. from 15th of this month we've to provide jobs to the applicants, otherwise unemployment allowance has to be paid. this is statutory under the employment guarantee act. i feel that india is the only country which has given a statutory backing to employment guarantee. the experiences that i'm gaining in implementing the act are very rich and highly satisfying.the allotment for our district alone is Rs 100 crores in the first phase.