Mind! As if it Matters<\/p>\n
When 25O million people being provided employment for at least hundred days are considered to have only mouth, legs and hands, surely the planners do not think that mind matters. This is a tragedy of monumental nature which deserves wider debate in the country. How could a country aspiring to be a knowledge society aim at providing jobs only of menial nature without involving mental and thinking power and knowledge intensive jobs? Let me state at the outset that I have nothing against menial work, if the
\nplanners also include this in their daily routine: they start their day with cleaning the
\nlatrines and urinals in planning commission, finance ministry (which any way need some
\ncleaning), PMO and the rest of the similar places where all the wisdom resides. In fact,
\nGandhiji inducted every new comer to his ashram by asking the person to clean the
\ntoilets. He believed that one could not take up bigger responsibilities of freedom struggle
\nwithout learning a lesson or two about dignity of labour.
\nBut then to engage the poorest people only in back breaking work adds no dignity to
\nlabour. What could be the assumptions behind such a policy for more than a hundred
\nyears, ever since Deccan riots took place more than a century and half ago?
\nTill recently, the Food for Work programmes used to lead to assets which did not last
\neven for single rain. Making the same roads over and over again was the destiny of most
\nsuch programmes. Employment Guarantee Scheme in Maharashtra started after 1971
\ndrought was first attempt to provide guarantee of employment within five kms of the
\nworkers. When a group of such workers demanded work, the state was obliged to
\nprovide the work. After the renewed focus on watershed programme in drought prone
\nareas, the activities dealing with soil and water conservation, afforestation, etc., were
\nincorporated in the public works programme. Since these programmes were not
\nobligatory, government introduced a law through which provision of employment on the
\npattern of EGS became obligatory with more than six billion expenditure every year. The
\nnature of the work and its measurement continue to be based on physical labour.
\nThe question one has to ask is whether millions of workers could not use their ability to
\nthink, analyse and infer while doing work. Should reliance be placed entirely on the
\nphysical work? I propose to argue that we can indeed make work much more
\nmeaningful, useful and paying if local knowledge around various resources is made the
\nbasis of employment programmes. I concede the possibility that some physical labour
\nwould be necessary to build the infrastructure in rural areas for better natural resource
\nmanagement. Out of 100 days, perhaps 60 days could be spent for that. Even for that
\nwork, much greater input of knowledge can be ensured so that the value is added to the
\nquality of the infrastructure. Remaining 40 days can be spent in various kinds of
\necological resource and knowledge mapping, value addition through processing, bio
\nwaste and other by-product utilisation, non-farm value addition and eventually building
\nup of knowledge and value chain from producer to consumer. The employment
\nprogramme can also be used to create creative content on the web for promoting village
\ntourism for which enormous potential exists.<\/p>\n
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\nThe specific nation building tasks proposed under knowledge intensive employment are:
\na. Building and updating Village Knowledge Registers (VKR): There is a
\ntremendous amount of knowledge with the elders, men and women of all
\ncommunities which is eroding fast. Some of this knowledge can provide very
\nvaluable leads for developing contemporary products such as herbal drugs,
\ndyes, food preservatives, weaning foods, metal and wood processing
\ntechnologies, casting, moulding, mineral processing, etc. Each village needs
\nto map the knowledge as well as resources. All the species of the plants,
\nanimals, insects, etc., can be inventorised and the biodiversity maps can also
\nbe put on the village website. Annual monitoring of diversity would help
\npeople track the environmental disturbances. The concept of people
\nbiodiversity registers is already provided in the Biodiversity Act. The VKR
\nwill incorporate both biodiversity and non-biodiversity based knowledge and
\nit can be integrated with the National Register of grassroots innovations and
\ntraditional knowledge at NIF and also with National Biodiversity Authority.
\nb. Identifying the best practices to develop value added products: In various
\nfields of knowledge, the elders among the workers would identify the best
\npractices for the given problem and the context either as such or after pooling
\nsimilar practices from other villages, new products will be developed,
\npackaged and branded to generate income and employment for the local
\ncommunities. Ideal aim should be that more and more people should get
\nemployment in knowledge based enterprises and deselect them from public
\nemployment programmes voluntarily.
\nc. Redefining the Khadi and Village Industries Programme for generating
\nemployment: As mentioned in the report of the 17 th Shodh Yatra, even the
\nordinary soap was brought from 400 kms far away in Raipur to the local
\nmarket in Koraput. There is no reason why large amount of non-edible oil
\nseeds in the region could not be valorised for soap production. In fact, every
\nworker in the country should be provided soap along with the wages because
\nlarge number of human diseases can be traced to the lack of proper hygiene.
\nd. Technology benchmarking in everyday life: Workers should be trained to do
\ntechnology audit so that one can see the drudgery and inefficiency in everyday
\nlife. Once the efficiency gaps are identified at block, district, state, national
\nand international level, workers can be enabled to think of the solutions that
\ncan help close the gap with the international best practices in those activities.
\nIt is only the absence of such an activity which explains why the efficiency of
\nusing fuel wood or cleaning the drinking water in more than 60 per cent
\nhouses has not improved much in the last few centuries.
\ne. Creating content for cultural, ecological and village tourism and lateral
\nlearning: Despite all the claims made about ICT revolution, there is very little
\nlocal language content available on the web developed by people themselves.<\/p>\n
3
\nNational Rural Employment Programme can contribute a great deal in
\ncreating content for the village website all over the country. Not only it will
\npromote people to people learning but also encourage more benefit to tourism.
\nThe cultural traditions, folk songs, sayings, fables, historical anecdotes,
\nheritage, etc., can be put up at this site under this programme. Local artists
\nwould get visibility and some of them may even get invitation for
\nperformances in rural as well as urban areas. More people engage in self-
\nemployment activities, less pressure there would be on government to provide
\nthe opportunities.
\nf. Food processing and online cafeteria: Apart from documenting various
\nrecipes, the employment programme can also support preparation of processed
\nfoods for which local and distant markets can be identified. Once the demand
\nis generated, production can be supported till market can bear the cost of
\nentire activity. It is obvious that for various suggestions given here, there
\nmay not be markets because of which state has to intervene. But once the
\nmarkets are created, more activities can be taken out of the purview of
\nemployment.
\ng. Large number of tribal people know how to make liquour: The technological
\njourney towards making herbal extracts is a short one. Tremendous value can
\nbe added if local communities can not only make herbal extracts, but also high
\nvalue herbal drugs properly tested and certified with the help of small
\nprocessing units set up by the employment programme. Various activities
\nunder tribal development, rural employment, watershed development, social
\nwelfare, women and child development, health and agro industries, etc., can
\nbe pooled to create small processing units in villages based on the raw
\nmaterials available in plenty. Herbal pesticides, veterinary medicine, herbal
\nfood preserver, etc., are some products that can be easily developed at local
\nlevel.
\nh. Artisanal, handicraft and handloom activities: Given the potential of
\nemployment in craft, handloom and kadhi activities, the past practices of
\nspending much more resources at the sale point of the products rather than in
\nimproving the quality and technology of the production process will have to
\nchange. If one compares a khadhi cloth shop with a private shop, one found
\nmore people engaged in selling much less products. The burden of this
\ninefficient delivery chain was borne by the khadhi workers whose wages did
\nnot improve much. The proposed model intends to blend the public
\nemployment with private market so that there is a competitive spirit in making
\nproducts with proper inputs of design and technology.
\nThe knowledge intensive approach to employment suggested here combines the
\nmenial and the mental faculties in a proportion that would be dignified and would
\nempower the local communities. It is natural that administration of a heterogeneous
\nprogramme is not very easy where a bureaucratic structure designed to deal with<\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
uniformity. But for how long can a bureaucratic constraint override the
\ndevelopmental aspirations of the society. The goal of India becoming a knowledge
\nsociety cannot be met by keeping 200 million people engaged in only menial task.
\nKnowledge intensity has to increase. Unless we want the problems of rural unrest
\nevident in 150 districts already to extend to other regions of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mind! As if it Matters When 25O million people being provided employment for at least hundred days are considered to have only mouth, legs and hands, surely the planners do not think that mind matters. This is a tragedy of monumental nature which deserves wider debate in the country. How could a country aspiring to … <\/p>\n