PHD Chamber suggestions for enhancing rural employment

The Government, in partnership with the private sector, should evolve a comprehensive plan for augmenting rural employment, now that the farm sector has notched a robust growth of 4.5 percent during 2007-08, according to PHD Chamber.

“The recent CSO figures on agriculture growth for the previous  year  and employment growth of  2.62 percent during 1999-2005 are happy auguries and are conducive to achieving inclusive growth within the existing policy framework, of course with better policy tooling and with stress on implementation,” says Dr L K Malhotra, President, PHD Chamber.

Mentioning that  growth is synonymous with increased employment in most of the cases, PHD Chamber said that there should be focused efforts under the purview of private-public partnerships (PPP) to enhance rural employment and more importantly, the quality of employment in the rural areas. This would serve the objective of equitable justice and would also help to curtail migration from rural areas into cities which creates severe constraints on civic amenities and leads to environment degradation in the cities.  

After considerable thought and informed discussion among stakeholders, the PHD Chamber has identified a few areas where private –public partnerships could be considered for the development of rural areas. Foremost among them is in the supply of high yielding varieties of seed and technology to farmers. Corporates can play an important role in bringing lab and land closer through imaginative interventions. E-Choupal by ITC and Kisan Bazars by Shriram Consolidated are some of the successful case studies in this regard (check the exact words and spellings).

Another area where public private partnerships could be contemplated is that of food processing.  This sector has the potential to absorb a large number of unemployed people in the rural areas.  Presently, empirical evidence indicates that only a limited number of rural people are being drawn into this sector on account of the inadequacy of skilled manpower required in these industries.   This problem could be addressed through partnership with food processing industries which can help set up ITI type of institutions to train rural people for processing of foods.  This in turn would enhance their employability.

Corporates could also play an important role in implementing the Employment Guarantee Scheme of the Government.   Some corporates like the Aditya Birla Group, Tatas etc have a well executed rural development program. Some of these companies depute their senior technocrats and officers for executing programs in rural areas.  There can be a tie-up at the grassroots level between these corporates and the government functionaries for implementing the programs especially in areas that lead to creation of capital assets like village roads, minor dams etc, where the corporates are also benefitted.

Ancillarization is finding more takers in the corporate world on account of its financial benefits. Some of the components and intermediaries that go into the final product manufactured by corporations can be farmed out to rural industries. This would provide year round employment to people in villages.

The Government is formulating a comprehensive plan to promote rural tourism across the country. Some of the basic infrastructure that has to be developed in these potential tourist spots can be jointly done by the Government and the private sector.

To bridge the growing rural-urban divide in Information Technology, corporations could be encouraged to set up IT kiosks, which can help villagers to access information on weather, better agricultural practices etc. Besides, some of the IT firms should be enlisted for  digitizing the land titles, Panchayat records etc, which in turn would help generating jobs as data entry operators for  educated people in villages.

According to PHD Chamber, there should be incentives for corporates to involve themselves in rural development activities.  In fact, a weighted tax deduction for the expenses incurred in this regard would encourage corporates to enhance their involvement in the rural area. “During the late seventies, the Government had evolved imaginative schemes for involvement of the private sector in rural development, either on their own or through voluntary organizations approved by the government. A comprehensive list of activities was also drawn up that would merit tax rebates. It is important that the government should re-introduce such schemes with adequate checks and balances to avoid misuse,” says Dr Malhotra.