The Growing Clamour For An Urban Jobs Scheme

The Indian govt has been weighing the possibility of an urban jobs programme (without the ‘work guarantee’ feature that NREGA offers) at least since August 2019

Since April 2020, G.Mathivathanan, a senior bureaucrat in Odisha’s urban development department, has found himself in the middle of a large-scale social experiment. In response to the pandemic, Odisha decided to try something novel: bring the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) to cities and towns.

NREGA’s distinctive muster roll-based work assignment remained, but the nature of public works changed, from digging wells and irrigation canals to building stormwater drains and maintaining urban parks. It was supposed to be temporary, lasting until the end of September. On Monday, Odisha decided to extend it by six more months. “Our thinking is this should become permanent. It is not necessarily just a covid thing,” said Mathivathanan. “In Odisha, this will evolve into a permanent urban employment scheme.”

“We strongly advocate for a national program too. But we cannot just keep waiting for the central government,” he added.

Source: livemint

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