Coming up: Law to ensure jobs

An outlay of between Rs 12,000-Rs 15,000 crore has been cleared for the first phase of the employment programme, which will have the consent of all state governments before final drafting and Cabinet approval. The Rural Development Ministry will act as the nodal ministry for monitoring implementation of the proposed Act.

The meetings in the PMO were attended by Planning Commission members, Dr Abhijit Sen and B N Yugandhar, as well as officials from the PMO and the Ministries of Rural Development, Finance and Agriculture. A draft of the proposed National Employment Guarantee Act has earlier been put on the Net by the National Avisory Council.

While the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) had made a guarantee of 100 days of employment for people residing in the backward districts of the country, the PMO has now added the following salient features to the proposed legislation:

• The employment guarantee would cover the backward areas of all states (to be listed by the state governments) in the first phase and will cover the entire country in five years.

• Any person above the age of 18 years will be eligible to seek employment under the Act at a wage not lower than the minimum wage for agriculture of the district in question.

• Significantly, the applicant should get employment within 15 days and that too, as far as possible, within seven km of his place of residence.

• It is also proposed that should such employment not be generated within the stipulated time, one-third of the entitled wages should be paid to the youth. In addition to the cash component, a component of food grains is also to be handed out to the unemployed youth.

Officials say a deadline for the Act to be finally drafted by end October has been set and that the concerned Ministries have been advised to put a system of identity cards in place so that there is no misuse of the employment guarantee.