THE PHENOMENON OF UNEMPLOYMENT
Punit Karnik & Mandar Purkar
In conversation with Neeraj Hatekar, Reader Economics Dept. University of Mumbai we try to find out the reasons for unemployment among the urban and rural population. Poverty being one of he reasons, there are other factors too that lead to the growing unemployment, which differs from cities to villages.
Rural poor are typically small farmer and landless agriculture workers. The percentage of dalits and tribals is very high in rural poor. The concept of poverty is closely related to unemployment. The phenomenon of unemployment consists of low frequency of employment or no job opportunities at all. In rural areas low productivity and poor monsoons are the main cause of poverty. While the urban poor predominantly consist of migrated population which work as casual workers.
In rural areas slow expansion in non – agricultural activities like transportation, storage, trade services are important for generating employment. In urban areas service sector growth is killed driven, and also there is continuous competition. Thus transition for casual workers is difficult.
In rural areas, investment in agriculture results in labour displacement. To improve conditions and generate employment it is necessary that there is a shift in crop patterns form cereal based to horticulture, scientific management, skill structure changes in matrix and focus on value added crops. Mindset of the people also requires a change so that they can look out for other opportunities. The corporate investments in plantation should be given boost by the government but for that regulatory structure should be in place to look into critical aspects like soil degradation.
In respect to farmer suicides in Vidarbha, he said, the co-operative structure is weak. The ratio of agriculture borrowing (private money lenders) per farmer in Vidarbha is 3 times higher in comparison to the other parts of Maharashtra. But the actual borrowings from the governmental schemes is less. He cited example of Dharani taluka, the per person average of Rs. 1.25 lakh seems higher but that is due to only 300 borrowers. In Vidarbha historically big landowners have controlled the lever of powers and they have access to loans and credit. As compared with western Maharashtra there is higher competition for resources and strong culture as well as network of co-operative; a few political elite do not control the access to credit.
He visited Sawarikhed, where Korku tribals live, they have to wander in search in employment and there is acute scarcity of food due to low farm productivity and land is wash away during monsoons. Moreover, the government doesn’t pay attention to land reclamation and soil conservation. The policies to address the issues are framed by non tribals who don’t take into account larger social dynamic and perspective.
Talking about urban situation he said in urban areas the low quality of education in BMC schools is the bane and there should be investments in education. The dropout percentage is higher and there is need of intervention at all levels. He said that due to licence quota there was stagnation in industrial sector as no new investments were made to create manufacturing capacities that would have resulted in job creation. The informalization of employment will result in total stock of employment going up but it will also result in adverse conditions.
Rajan Padwal in his article in the Samaj Prabhodhan Patrika’s July – December 2005 issue has analysed the reasons for decline in he rate of employment generation and rise in poverty. The crisis in agricultural sector is due to population growth, changing crop patterns and inability to absorb and provide work to large population and mechanization in farming. The availability of opportunities in urban areas is more compared to rural areas forcing
large – scale migration. It is necessary to provide housing and basic amenities and create infrastructure to accommodate such migrants. The increase of labourers in unorganized sector requires paying increased attention by formulating proactive polices to safeguard their interests. The exploitation of labourers working in unorganised sector is rampant; they should at least receive stable and minimum wages and rights. The opportunities, which are available after globalisation, are for skilled and educated workforce. But if the supply of unskilled and less educated labourers is more it will create an imbalance. Hence to correct it a large scale government investment is required in education and training.