Adding a skills component to NREGA would achieve several ends
Written by The Indian Express
2 min read
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As one of the largest job programmes in history,NREGA often gets a bad rap from those who think it does not contribute to growth that it amounts to giving people fish,rather than teaching them to fish,to use the Chinese expression.
Now,theres an interesting proposal in the works,floated by the Prime Ministers National Council on Skill Development,to impart greater sustainability to NREGA employment by investing in skill-formation. However,to make sure that the original intent of the scheme is not diluted,its going to be rolled out in a calibrated way and meant for those who have already completed the required number of days of unskilled manual labour. Also,it will focus largely on artisan skills,because NREGA was felt to have unwittingly contributed to a de-skilling as many craftspeople abandoned their work to shovel soil and build ditches,because it was a reliable source of income.
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Meanwhile,as far as the skill development mission goes,hitching its wagon to NREGA is a great idea,giving it a country-wide horizontal reach to scale up. Apart from the major crafts clusters,like weavers in Varanasi or Chanderi,brass workers in Moradabad,etc,we dont know the dimensions of our artisan community. NREGA has phenomenal scale and covers all the districts across India,and will help provide a real database so that the skill development programme can have greater range and depth. This will add greater heft to the programme,which aims to massively expand the skilled pool of workers in health,information technology,tourism and hospitality,with private sector cooperation. So this plan would not only raise the NREGA profile and make it a productivity-enhancing scheme rather than simply welfare,it would also make a huge difference to the skilling project,so crucial if India is to make use of its demographic advantage. At a less abstract level,it could stop the free fall of Indian craftsmanship,the slump in self-belief among our artisans who now feel that digging a well gives them greater returns
