MGNREGS & SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Over the past few decades, there has been a considerable change in the mindset of academics & policy makers with regard to perceived notions on our ever growing population. While population explosion is still considered as a serious concern with respect to percapita availability of resources, it is no longer seen as a serious impediment to growth (courtesy: china!!).A testimony to this changed mindset is the way in which the population stabilization target was blatantly pushed to 2070 without even batting an eyelid!! ....some of us may scoff at this indifference & call for corrective action. But the truth remains that there far too many complexities involved in securing population control than we are actually aware of !...much of the factors which influence population explosion are beyond cognitive control…they are so firmly entrenched in our social fabric that there is as such no concurrence among the think tanks of India regarding a foolproof counter strategy.
If unbridled population is growth is to be accepted as a reality which all of us have to live with, then what could be our strategy to convert this 1.2bn population with over a 400 million work force into a productive one?....the answer to this lies in the world’s largest wage employment guarantee program  the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program( MGNREGS)…it is now of common knowledge that the rapid strides made by our country in the past six decades has effected a significant shift in employment patterns across India. The shift from agriculture & allied activities as the principle source of employment to other occupations which form the bulk of the unorganized sector is evident all around us. However, as a classical case of the fabled “riggsian prismatic society”, we still have a majority of our workforce still occupied as agricultural workers.
When the NREGP emerged as a flagship scheme of the UPA govt, there were apprehensions regarding its capability to provide guaranteed gainful employment in rural areas as a supplementary avenue of income. Five years on, the verdict is a chequered one…..while the program did perform admirably (given its scale of operation & size of beneficiaries) , the results were not uniform across the country. Further there were reports of malpractice, embezzlement & fraud in areas where miscreants found out ways to beat the system & navigate through loopholes….nevertheless the experiment was a fruitful one which came up with periodic reforms (like social audit) to counter most drawbacks…..now rechristened as the MGNREGP, the program which has both its scope & mandate expanded is regarded as one among the greatest human resource development programs undertaken in history. All this sounds good isn’t it?....but is it true?...is the MGNREGP a “human resource development ” program in the first place?.......hell no!....its at best a “human resource utility” program!!.....
There is seldom any cognizable development of human resource ….all we do is provide the poor blokes “guaranteed employment & timely wages” just because we are bound by duty to do so…isn’t that pathetic? Doesn’t it look like the government is trying hard to continue its tradition of “distributing alms” & “perpetuating the culture of beggary”?
That’s exactly what the successive governments have been doing since independence….most of our poverty alleviation programs & policies(national food for work program(NFWP);conditional cash transfer scheme; huge subsidies given all along the production-consumption chain etc) point to a pattern wherein , no effort is made to develop the skill of the beneficiaries. It is sad that MGNREGP which has the potential to transform millions of lives is going down the same way…
Any serious effort towards human development should focus on skill development. a renowned luminary once said that , its better to teach a man how to fish rather than put food on his plate…the relevance of this view is greater today as we live in a knowledge economy where lack of knowledge is viewed as incompetence. In such a scenario would it be wise on our part to merely use our human resource to carry on doing manual unskilled labour throughout their lives? Should we not nurture the ability of population to equip itself with all the skills which are required to secure self employment?
We should indeed!...there is no better opportunity to do this than carry this out on an already established robust platform such as MGNREGP.if the skill set of our working population is bolstered to its potential & sufficient freedom to express one’s scientific temper is given, it would lead to a social entrepreneurship movement which could revolutionize the way we Indians looks at things, infuse innovative spirit in our citizens & usher in dignity in their lives.
One of the fundamental reasons china was able to achieve double digit growth in spite of starting out later than India was due to the fact that they embarked on a systematic process of upgrading the skills of their workforce .the level of civilization in modern parlance is determined by the degree of specialization of the work force of a country….the scope of developmental activity is infinite!....if our work force can develop specialization in various fields, new vistas of employment .could open up & we could secure inclusive growth .
Are we doing enough to enhance the skill of our work force?....apparently not!...there are a lot of things which we should be doing on this front which we are not. The current govt policy to upgrade skill has been carried out through ITI’s .but like a lot of policies; these institutions are besotted with an array of problems such as lack of proper infrastructure, funding & archaic practices & procedures. There is a huge deficit between the technical expertise required for a job on field & the obsolete training that is imparted at these institutes. Further, there is no synergy between our premier educational institutions (read IIT’s,IIM’s & universities),R&D facilities & the ITI’s which has rendered them defunct. The need of the hour is to come up with a system of vocational education which could educate the illiterate unskilled labour & make them competent enough to secure employment on their own. A strategy of using development programs involving people’s participation as a plank to launch major skill development programs may be used.Further, this could be augmented by issuing certificates to those workers who develop an expertise in a particular field of skilled work. This would not only help them tide over unemployment (enabling them to secure employment in the private sector) but also gradually reduce the subsidy burden of the government. Such surplus funds could be ploughed back into more social sector spending. It is thus imperative that social development schemes of the Ilk of MGNREGP be used as a tool to herald a new era of change.
If we should transform our teeming millions into a potent human resource capable of sustaining our burgeoning growth & securing inclusive growth, we should ensure that our unorganized, unskilled work force embrace the culture of “consistent skill upgradation” on par with global standards .if we are able to achieve this in the next decade, it could as well serve as an antidote to most of the undesirable social issues of our times.