Under the Rozgar Mela scheme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi distributed about 71,000 appointment letters to newly-inducted recruits on 22 November 2022, via video conferencing. The Rozgar Mela is a step towards fulfillment of the commitment of the PM to accord highest priority to employment generation. The Rozgar Mela is expected to act as a catalyst in providing meaningful opportunities to the youth for their empowerment and participation in national development. Earlier in October this year, appointment letters were handed over to 75,000 newly-inducted appointees under Rozgar Mela. In addition to the categories of posts filled earlier, posts of teachers, lecturers, nurses, nursing officers, doctors, pharmacists, radiographers and other technical and paramedical posts are also being filled. A significant number of posts are being filled by the Ministry of Home Affairs in various Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) also.
The Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) has been launched with effect from 1 October 2020 to incentivize employers for creation of new employment and restoration of loss of employment during Covid-19 pandemic. An employee drawing a monthly wage of less than Rs 15,000 who was not working in any establishment registered with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) before 1 October 2020 was eligible for the benefit. The employees who lost their job during Covid-19 pandemic and did not join in any EPF covered establishment upto 30 September 2020 were also eligible for the benefit.
The Modi government for a period of over two years, has been crediting both the employee share (12% of wages) and employer’s share (12% of wages) of contribution payable, or only the employee’s share, depending on employment strength of the EPFO registered establishments.
The scheme commenced from 1 October 2020 and registration was open for eligible employers and new employees upto 31 March 2022. The scheme was intended to benefit a total of 71.80 lakh members. Total registration under the scheme is 75.11 lakh. As on date, benefits have been provided to over 60 lakh beneficiaries through more than 1.50 lakh establishments in the country. Needless to add, ABRY has been a massive catalyst in employment generation and is still going strong, with employment given to over 6 million people in the last 2 years alone, something India’s fractious Opposition has failed to digest and a left leaning media has failed to report.
Besides employment opportunities provided under Rozgar Mela and ABRY, a whopping
8.41 crore rural women members have been mobilised through Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission, (DAY-NRLM), into 77.4 lakh Self-Help Groups (SHGs). DAY-NRLM has been mobilised across 721 districts and 6842 blocks of 34 States and Union Territories.
MGNREGS under the Modi government is also going beyond its conventional role of acting just as a source of rural employment for women, to becoming a dynamic platform to place demands for village community work, to negotiate for space and power with gram panchayats and for networking. Members of self-help groups engaged with MGNREGS workers to help build an irrigation drain in Dimoruguri Gram Panchayat of Guijan Block in Tinsukia, Assam, as brilliantly documented by IndiaSpend in a series of articles in the last few years.
IndiaSpend writes: “For Saroj Jaiswal, a 40-year-old single woman of Urra village of Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh, the job card means the ability to negotiate for power and space with the gram panchayat officials”. Jaiswal told IndiaSpend, “Ham pradhan aur sachiv-ji se kaam nikalvaana seekh gaye hain. Aur woh job card ke madhyam se hua hai!” (We have learned how to get work done from our panchayat president and secretary, and it was thanks to our fight for our job cards.) Millions of women like Jaiswal have learned to use their SHGs to demand village community works, to negotiate for space and power with their gram panchayats, and to catch up with friends–or, to put it in the work context, to network. This has in turn bolstered these collectives and enabled them to become more involved in rural development and become significant catalysts in employment generation.
In rural areas, women come together under SHGs to address their common problems, such as by engaging in weekly savings to create a corpus of funds–for activities known as ‘thrift’ and ‘credit’–for use in personal emergencies or to tide over pressing needs. Their participatory planning process involves discussions and drawing up demands for the development of their villages.
The movement of women oriented SHGs has intensified in the last 8 years under the aegis of PM Modi, with over 77 lakh of them working across the country, a figure over three times more than under the erstwhile Congress regime, with over 8 crore women being connected with these groups. Be it manufacturing masks and sanitisers or delivering food to the needy and spreading awareness, the contribution of SHGs and ‘Sakhi groups’ was incomparable in every way, during Covid.
An important decision was taken during the pandemic to raise the loan amount for SHGs from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh without any guarantee, by the Modi government. Also, Rs 1625 crore was released as capitalisation support fund to over four lakh such groups. In addition, Modi government also released Rs 25 crore as seed money for 7500 SHG members under the PMFME (PM Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises) scheme of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries and Rs 4.13 crore as funds to 75 FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations) being promoted under the mission. Unsecured loans of about Rs 4 lakh crore have been made available to these SHGs, in the last 8 years.
PM Modi has, time and again, spoken about the power of the youth and how they have the ability and the opportunity to change the world. From being job creators as entrepreneurs, to their tech ability, the PM has emphasised upon the important role the youth of India has to play for the growth of our country, by emphasising on the concept of “Yuva Devo Bhava, Yuva Shakti Devo Bhava”. As India under Modi, transitions from being an economy of job seekers to that of job creators, both tailor-made employment schemes like ABRY and SHGs led by young and aspirational India, will redefine the very concept of employment generation, making it more inclusive, with a focus on shared values and shared goals.
Sanju Verma is an economist, National Spokesperson of the BJP and the bestselling author of ‘The Modi Gambit’.