Employ experience

With due respect, Bibek Debroy’s single paragraph dismissal of the case for an Employment Guarantee Act (‘Jobs, not ...

With due respect, Bibek Debroy’s single paragraph dismissal of the case for an Employment Guarantee Act (‘Jobs, not the government’s job’, IE, October 13) is a morass of confusion. The argument is based on a superficial comparison with the public distribution system, which is neither here nor there. The author suggests that instead of an Employment Guarantee Act, the government should provide an unemployment insurance of Rs 100 per day. This proposal is a non-starter since there is no simple way of identifying the unemployed. Debroy is right in pointing out that an effective Employment Guarantee Act requires a credible ‘‘delivery mechanism’’. The experience of relief works in a drought situation shows that such a mechanism can be put in place in most states, when rural employment is a political priority. The adoption of an Employment Guarantee Act will greatly help to create the required sense of urgency.

— Jean Dreze Allahabad

Kaun banega CM?

• The victory of the Nationalist Congress Party-Congress alliance in Maharashtra truly belongs to Sharad Pawar. Hopefully 71 seats should clinch the chief minister’s post for the NCP vide formula ’99.

— Raghubir Singh Pune

Ridiculous dismissal

• It is indeed unfortunate that a school has decided to ask Veerappan’s daughter to leave (‘School to throw out Veerappan’s daughter’, IE, October 20). What control could this child possibly have had on her father’s actions? Punishing an innocent child for no fault of hers is ridiculous.

— R. Venugopal Damascus

Mystifying merger

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• Your editorial ‘Join the Party! The more the Congress changes, the more it remains the same’ (October 12) has been written in the immediate context of the return of Bansi Lal and his Haryana Vikas Party to the Congress prior to the February 2005 assembly elections. It may be remembered that the HVP got only 6 per cent of the vote in the May 2004 Lok Sabha election and drew a blank in terms of seats. Bansi Lal is now a spent force and the Congress hardly needs such a relic of its Emergency past. With men like these back in the Congress, an alliance between Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal and the BJP may well be revived and the only way out may be for Congress President Sonia Gandhi to pick as her mascot a clean, well-educated, young leader like Selja.

— Vinod Chowdhury Delhi

They all plan

• This refers to Jaithirth Rao’s article about the Planning Commission (‘Planning for the Commission’, IE, October 15). Many countries have a department or at least a cell for planning though it may not be known by the same name as our organisation. The European Economic Commission, for instance, has many plan panels in diverse fields. France believes in indicative planning.

— G. Sundaram On e-mail