Rural employment bill: ‘World is watching India’

The ILO has already begun receiving queries about the Employment Guarantee Bill — India is the first country to introduce a bill recognising employment as a legal right.

“This type of scheme is pioneering and everyone will be watching the implementation of this scheme. Several requests have come in on employment guarantee schemes and poverty reduction,” Rie Vejs-Kjeldgaar, officer-in-charge at ILO’s sub-regional office in Delhi, said.

“Other countries are taking interest and are thinking of introducing their own employment creation programmes,” Dr Rizwanul Islam, director of the ILO’s Employment Strategy Department, said.

Latin American and African countries are the ones most interested. South Africa, Argentina, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia are among the nations which already run employment and food-for-work schemes.

Devereaux said the South African model came closest to the Indian scheme, but warned: “You can’t replicate one country’s experience with another….”

Some countries have added health and education riders to their schemes. In Argentina, people need to be working in order to get their children vaccinated. In another Argentinean programme parents need to prove their children are attending school in order to be eligible for benefits.

Devereaux added that in Sri Lanka, contracting and procurement considerations were integrated in the schemes. But, he added, the success of such programmes depended on their design and management. He said unemployment was so high in Indonesia that employment generation schemes had their limitations — only 10 per cent of the unemployed could hope to obtain jobs.

Devereaux added: “If you have a well managed programme, you reduce leakages.” He said cash was more helfpul than food for work.