Urban job scheme: How 6 states do it, what is needed to make it work

A council advising the Prime Minister recommends securing employment for the urban poor.

The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) has advocated an urban job guarantee scheme on the lines of MGNREGA, the rural anti-poverty scheme.

Ever since images of millions of migrants walking back to their homes from cities during lockdowns for Covid-19 were beamed on television channels, there has demand to frame a programme for urban unemployment. Six states have such a programme, with Rajasthan announcing one in March 2022. It has allocated a hefty Rs 800 crore for the programme.

However, so far, one big drawback of all the schemes as pointed out by civil society is that most do not provide a legal guarantee for employment. In the absence of which they become just like another government-run programme.

Following are some of the urban employment schemes currently on across India

Kerala’s Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme or (AUEGS): One of the most successful and longest-running urban employment guarantee schemes provides a guaranteed hundred days of wage-employment in a financial year to an urban household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Launched back in 2010, AUEGS according to some media reports has around 2.5 lakh workers registered across the State of which 1.5 lakh are active workers. Among them, as many as 90 per cent are women.

Other states

After COVID lockdown Himachal Pradesh had notified such a scheme. Followed by Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand.

Himachal’s scheme: Called the Mukhya Mantri Shahri Ajeevika Guarantee Yojana, it seeks to provide 120 days of guaranteed wage employment to every household in urban areas

Odisha’s scheme: Called the Urban Wage Employment Initiative. It is a scheme with an initial allocation of Rs 100 crore for six months starting from April 2020.

Tamil Nadu’s scheme: TN has launched an urban employment scheme on pilot basis in 2021-22 with Rs 100 crore. 50 per cent of the persondays was earmarked for women.

Not much details are known about the Jharkhand initiative

Ideal scheme

An ideal urban job guarantee scheme should have following minimum characteristics:

*Legal backing providing minimum work days is must

*It should allocate adequate funds to strengthen the Urban Local Bodies

*All workers should be entitled to statutory minimum wages revised regularly like MGNREGA
 

*Machine use should be disallowed except in unusual cases or when project cost is high

*Prohibit use of contractors unless project cost crosses a fixed threshold

*Kind of works that will be undertaken needs to well defined

*Special incentives to protect livelihood of urban self-employed like rag pickers, rehri wallahs etc