Sluggish growth of job opportunities in India

Sluggish growth of job opportunities in India

In India,  the proportion of unorganised sector (informal sector) workers continues to remain high. The data clearly indicates that despite more than half a century of planned economic development the proportion of formal sector in total employment has not shown any significant progress. Furthermore, even after the introduction of neoliberal economic reforms the formal sector has registered marginal or nil growth even in the highly industrialised urban centers of India. The way in which the urban informal economy has grown during the decades suggests that self-employment and very small economic units in the trade and service sub-sectors will prevail in the foreseeable future. This type of activity has much lower entry barriers in terms of level of skills or capital required than the micro-enterprise type. It is better suited to absorb the new entrants to the labour force and rural migrants. On the other hand, with greatly depressed incomes in informal trade and service activities due to the growth of this sub-sector, the increase in the number of economic units might have limits. Informal sector includes a wide range of economic activities participated by self-employed, casual workers, unpaid family workers, etc., and tiny units in manufacturing, construction, trade, transport and servicing.18 Typical informal sector participants include petty traders, platform vendors, coolies, artisans, masons, carpenters, general helpers, leather workers, handloom weavers, hair dressers, beauticians, launderers, electricians, electronic goods repairers, automobile mechanics, milkmen, shop assistants, sales girls, teachers (employed in unorganized and unaided schools, colleges) and other such educational institutions), hotel workers, cobblers, scavengers, shoeshine boys, animal/hand cart pullers, taxi/auto drivers, cycle rickshaw pullers, and the list is endless. Many of those employed in informal sector activities work only part of the day, part of the week ,or part of the year in odd jobs with low wages. Millions work as casual labour and others work long hours for a pittance. Driven by the force of circumstances they engage in all kinds of activities with low wages and no security. Many households have to eke out subsistence under very difficult conditions, being dependent mostly on the earning capacity of the household members including children. What work they can find is usually piecemeal, unstable and insecure, not to mention of backbreaking and tedious; yet they work hard day in and day out in order to earn for the sustenance of their families at the subsistence level.

The continued sluggish growth of employment in India is a cause of grave concern. Data clearly indicate that during the neoliberal economic reform period since 1991 growth of employment has been slow. Employment growth in the organised sector, public and private combined, declined during 1994-2012 compared to 1983-1994. This has primarily happened due to decline of employment in public organized sector. Employment in establishments covered by EMI grew at 1.20 per cent per annum during 1983-1994 but decelerated to –0.31 per cent per annum during 1994-2004. However, the decline in the latter period was mainly due to a decrease in employment in public sector establishments, whereas the private sector had shown slight increase in the growth in employment from 0.44 per cent to 0.58 per cent per annum during 1994-2004. Recent data show that between 2004 and 2012, jobs have increased at an awfully low rate of just 2.2 per year. But the organised sector employment growth was abysmal low. The recently released survey findings from the NSSO show that bulk of employment growth during 2004-2012 has occurred in services especially in retail trade, construction and personal services, which constitute low-paying and tough jobs generally termed as informal sector activities. The growth of organised sector employment in general has been sticky during 2004-2012 and whatever employment growth is taking place is only in the informal sector. The impact of slow pace of employment growth in the organised sector, particularly in the public sector is more severe in the case of the educated youth belonging to the socially weaker sections of the society. The minor gains arising out of the new economic policy have gone to a small segment of the society. When the process of industrialisation and modernisation is rapid enough to create adequate job opportunities with increased productivity and higher wages, the gains of development will percolate to a larger segment of the society. On the other hand, if the process is not rapid, the benefits will accrue to those whose initial economic, social and political conditions enable them to take advantage of modernisation. In India, only a small proportion of the work force is able to occupy jobs with high earnings in the modern industrial sectors and the associated tertiary sectors such as the entrepreneurial, industrial, business (executives), administrative, bureaucratic, professional, white collar workers, and managerial and supervisory cadres of the workers employed in the organized sectors. The entry in these sectors is limited due not only to their small size, but mainly because of lack of education, training, initiative, innovative skills and resources, besides the use of capital-intensive technology. Consequently, the process of development has benefited the upper-middle and the richer sections, which invariably belong to the forward communities, much more than the middle, lower middle and the poorer sections,which has affected particularly the backward classes and the Dalits.

The new HRD minister  Prakash Javadekar

 is the “right person in the right place.” He is the one who has the personality combined with diligence and pragmatism, he will be successful in extricating the HRD ministry from the controversies and deficiencies. however has to cope with numerous challenges to cleanse Indian education. the recently released national policy on education report 2016 (NPER) has convincingly argued that Indian education system is in a state of “disarray”. the most important issue is that of the degree trading deemed universities. the Tandon committee found “undesirable management architecture” in most of the deemed universities, a reference to their being family, rather than professionally, managed. the committee also indicted the 44 varsities for “thoughtless introduction” of new study programmes beyond the mandate of the original terms of grant of deemed university status. it also concluded that none of them were engaged in any meaningful research activity. when the government realised that the public mood was against indiscriminately granting deemed university status (later university status) to all sorts of private teaching shops owned by unscrupulous persons, mainly politicians. with the floodgates having been opened by Arjun Singh and reports of the poor quality and unemployability of Indian university graduates causing alarm in industry and media, the government was forced to a freeze sanctioning new deemed universities, and placed existing ones under the scanner of the Tandon committee. it is reported that at the time of the freeze order, 225 proposals for deemed universities were under the consideration of the commission, of which 37 were from Tamil Nadu, 30 from Uttar Pradesh, 24 from Maharashtra, and 17 from Karnataka. moreover, the HRD ministry constituted its own committee under the chairmanship of prof. p.n.Tandon, to investigate existing deemed universities. the Tandon committee’s recommended for derecognition 44 deemed universities was accepted by the HRD ministry. as usual the managements of these institutions approached the judiciary. the case is pending.in this context, one aspect has to be made clear. UGC action to grant deemed university status is a clear case of encroachment of state autonomy. moreover, UGC is ill-equipped to monitor and control the functioning of the deemed universities. therefore, the granting of deemed university status should be stopped forthwith. the existing deemed universities may be brought under the ambit of monitoring by central/state government.

Times of India, HRD Mantri’s real job is not fire-fighting, it’s education,  July 10, 2016,

Smart Cities

''The new NDA government under the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had announced that the UPA government’s Scheme of RAY would be discontinued and the liabilities of this scheme are proposed to be subsumed in the proposed new scheme, i.e., 'Sardar Patel National Housing Mission. ‘In fact, the NDA Government has proposed to provide Housing for All by the year 2022 and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation is in the process of developing a new scheme to cater to housing for all by 2022, by building 30 million houses, mostly for the economically weaker sections and low income groups. The projects already proposed under RAY are planned to be subsumed in the new scheme. Experts believe that it will be tough task to fulfill the NDA government’s promise of “housing for all by 2022,” considering the track record of different government programmes in the recent years. The Standing Committee on Urban Development in its recent report (18 December, 2014) has urged upon the Ministry Urban Housing and Poverty Alleviation to make concerted efforts “to remove all the bottlenecks and implement the scheme in true spirit otherwise, the target for “Housing for All” would remain a distant dream.” The NDA government has also come out with the ambitious plan of building 100 smart new cities in the country. Smart cities are projected to be equipped with basic infrastructure and will offer a good quality of life through smart solutions. Assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, robust IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation along with safety of its citizens are some of the likely attributes of these smart cities. The government seems to look forward to the building of the smart cities that will have better facilities, better connectivity and better environment. In 2015, the NDA government has unveiled a list of 98 cities, including 24 state capitals for its Smart Cities project. Moreover, there is also no reference about how far the concept of smart cities will help to make the Indian cities slum-free. In fact, it has to be noted that the strategy for the development of Indian cities, including the concept of smart cities, will not be fruitful unless it includes a plan for making the cities slum-free.

Unstable Waters: Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is a water scarce area and rain water is the major source of water supply in the state. Tamil Nadu accounts for 4 per cent of the land area and 6 per cent of the population, but only 3 per cent of the water resources of the country. Most of Tamil Nadu is located in the rain shadow region of the Western Ghats and hence receives limited rainfall from the south-west monsoon. The total water potential of the State is 36 km3 or 24,864 M cum. There are 17 major river basins in the State with 61 reservoirs and about 41,948 tanks. Of the annual water potential of 46,540 million cubic metres (MCM), surface flows account for about half. Most of the surface water has already been tapped, primarily for irrigation which is the largest user. There are about 24 lakh hectares irrigated by surface water through major, medium and minor schemes. The utilisation of surface water for irrigation is about 90 percent. The utilisable groundwater recharge is 22,423 MCM. The current level of utilisation expressed as net ground water draft of 13,558 MCM is about 60 percent of the available recharge, while 8,875 MCM (40 percent) is the balance available for use. Over the last five years, the percentage of safe blocks has declined from 35.6 per cent to 25.2 percent while the semi-critical blocks have gone up by a similar percentage. There is shortage of water for various competing requirements such as, domestic, agricultural, commercial and industrial purposes. Moreover, over the years, proper attention has not been given to maintain the sources of water storage built in the past, viz., lakes, ponds and tanks (including the Temple tanks), which criss cross all over the State, besides the naturally formed lakes and estuaries. Over the years, a large number of the water bodies have been encroached by anti-social elements. Temple tanks all over the State are invariably occupied by encroachers. Moreover, most of the lakes, tanks and ponds have remained unattended for long and as a result, silt formation has reduced their storage capacities. Above all, unscientific (mostly illegal) sand mining has caused severe damage to most of the river systems in the State. As there is growing pressure on available water resources due to the burgeoning demand for water, concrete steps have to be initiated to desilt, renovate and restore the existing water bodies and create new sources to increase water storage facilities so as to enable adequate supply of water. For providing equitable, affordable piped water supply to the people of the State it is required to explore and tap all obtainable sources of water, including rain water, groundwater, surface sources, desalination and waste-water re-use.

Street vending in Chennai

Street vending or hawking is one of the important means of earning a livelihood for the work force in the city. Estimates show that about 66 percent of the city’s work force is involved in informal sector and a sizable proportion among them constitutes unorganised retail traders. Of these, a significant section comprises street vendors or hawkers. Estimates show that Chennai has about 1.25 lakh street vendors or hawkers. They are found in every busy location and road/street in all over the city. However, the presence of large numbers of street vendors or hawkers   has become a contentious issue.  Truly, hawking on road margins, pavements, pedestrian sub-ways and foot over bridges leads to congestion and overcrowding. In many areas footpaths are almost lost to the hawkers. Increasingly, pedestrians are finding to their dismay that the space meant for them is only shrinking.  Besides eating into carriage/pedestrian way, the hawkers often dump garbage in the areas where they carry on their trade, creating nuisance to the public. Sometimes, when hawkers appropriate so much space for themselves they do become more of an impediment/ irritant than a convenience.

 In many areas the shopkeepers keep their fingers crossed as their shops are becoming unapproachable and often invisible for the customers. There has been a long-running battle between street vendors, shopkeepers and pedestrians in all the cities/ towns all over the country over encroachment of roadsides and pavements by hawkers. In fact, trade wars between shopkeepers and hawkers take place very frequently in different places in the cities/towns all over the country.  As residents’ associations as well as shopkeepers associations become more powerful, there is growing pressure on local municipal offices and police to tackle “the hawker menace.” But the hawkers have the support of local politicians and goons, who receive “mamool” from the hawkers.

The hawkers say that the shopkeepers, including big ones, also obstruct traffic flow and pedestrian movements by spreading their wares on pavements and road margins. Besides, according to them, the greatest cause  of  obstruction to traffic  flow,  inconvenience to commuters, nuisance to shopkeepers, and hindrance to street vendors themselves is caused by encroachment of road margins and pavement by  parking (legal as well as illegal) of trucks, cars, motorbikes, scooters, even in busy roads and nearby markets in the cities/towns.

 At present, street vending or hawking is an integral part of urban life in Indian cities/towns. Various studies have already confirmed the fact that street vendors comprise one of the most marginalised sections of the urban poor. What was a sporadic activity found near the railway stations, bus stands, markets and other busy localities, today street vending is institutionaslised in every part of the cities and towns all over India. In fact, one can rarely find a road, street, lane or public place without the presence of hawkers. Experts say that as long as people are unable to get better jobs with higher remuneration in the formal sector, they will continue to fall back to street vending or hawking as a profession/activity to eke out their livelihood. No doubt, the presence of large number  street vendors create  numerous problems  for the civic authorities, traffic police, vehicle users, shopkeepers, pedestrians and the general public. But it is impossible to totally eliminate street vending, for it will jeopardise the livelihood of millions of poor people. Any attempt to eliminate them will only be counterproductive and lead to disharmony. Yet their operations have to be necessarily regulated so as to reduce commuter hardships, obstruction of traffic flow and hindrance to shopkeepers.

 In sum, at present, street vending or hawking is an integral part of urban life in Indian cities/towns. Various studies have already confirmed the fact that street vendors comprise one of the most marginalised sections of the urban poor. What was a sporadic activity found near the railway stations, bus stands, markets and other busy localities, today street vending is institutionaslised in every part of the cities and towns all over India. In fact, one can rarely find a road, street, lane or public place without the presence of hawkers. Experts say that as long as people are unable to get better jobs with higher remuneration in the formal sector, they will continue to fall back to street vending or hawking as a profession/activity to eke out their livelihood. No doubt, the presence of large number  street vendors create  numerous problems  for the civic authorities, traffic police, vehicle users, shopkeepers, pedestrians and the general public. But it is impossible to totally eliminate street vending, for it will jeopardise the livelihood of millions of poor people. Any attempt to eliminate them will only be counterproductive and lead to disharmony. Yet their operations have to be necessarily regulated so as to reduce commuter hardships, obstruction of traffic flow and hindrance to shopkeepers.

Sickness of SMEs

In recent years, the small scale (SME) units have been put to cruelty and grave hardship because of the introduction of scheme of classifying accounts into non performing assets (NPA). In 1997, NPAs of micro, small, medium, large industries put together stood at 15.8 percent of bank loans. In the same year, while the SSI sector was responsible for nearly one-half of the total number of NPA accounts, its share in the absolute amount of NPA accounts was about 20 percent. Thereafter, the proportion of NPA accounts started to decline due to the introduction of very stringent norms. It declined to 10.7 percent 1999-2000 and thereafter it showed a continuous decline and stood at to 2.4 percent in 2008-09. But recently there has been an enormous increase in the number and volume of NPA accounts. The NPAs of the Indian banking sector increased to 2.40 percent in 2010-11 and increased further to . 2.94 in 20011-12. In absolute figures NPAs have almost doubled during 2009-2012, i.e. it increased from about Rs.56,300 crore in March 2008 to about Rs.117,262 crore in March 2012. And assets under reconstruction had trebled during the same period. But for the restructuring of corporate sector bad loans amounting to Rs.2.0 lakh crore in the last two years the banking sector would have witnessed an enormous surge in the volume of NPA. According to figures provided by RBI many corporates have gone for second restructuring, which shows that the situation is becoming more serious. Experts feel that applying certain common norms to classify the accounts as NPA for all categories of industries, viz. large, medium, small, and micro units, is illogical and unreasonable. To treat a micro industrial/business unit together with large scale units is sheer imprudence and ramification of neo-liberalism. The current practice of classifying industrial units as “non- performing,” if interest or installments of principal due remain unpaid for more than 90 days has caused grave hardship and untold sufferings to the small scale entrepreneurs across the country. So they have been clamoring for relaxation of norms for NPAs and extension of time limit for repayment of loans from the present 90 days to at least 180 days, following the ongoing global recession.5It has resulted in more and more SME units becoming sick and ultimately NPA in the absence of proper rehabilitation or restructuring of the SSI as in the case of the corporate sector. As a result, the SME units all over the country are in a fix, anticipating closure of their units any time either by themselves or by the banks.Reports show that sometimes the bank officers harass the borrowers even for flimsy and unorthodox reasons.