Job guarantee Bill gets PMO push

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) today held an inter-ministerial meeting to discuss various provisions of the Employment Guarantee Act and pave the way for its speedy introduction in Parliament.

Consultations with the states are expected to be held next month to seek their views on how best to provide employment guarantees to the poor.

The meeting, attended by the ministries of law, rural development, labour and the Planning Commission, was held to discuss a list of options prepared by the rural development ministry.

The PMO initiative comes ahead of a meeting of the National Advisory Council, which is also expected to take up the draft Bill.

"The meeting is a bid to sort out inter-ministerial issues which could hold up introduction of the Act in Parliament during the Winter Session," said sources.

The cost of providing the guarantee, in the initial stages, is likely to be in the range of Rs 8,000 crore and the focus will be on creation of non-capital-intensive assets which do not need mechanised inputs.

The programme will begin in a few districts and then be extended gradually, over a period of 4-5 years, to cover the entire country. Once it is enforced all over the country, existing employment generation schemes and poverty alleviation programmes will be merged with the employment guarantee programme.

Introduction of the National Employment Guarantee Act was a commitment made in the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) of the United Progressive Alliance government.

The NCMP states that the Act is to provide "a legal guarantee for at least 100 days of employment, to begin with, on asset-creating public works programmes every year at minimum wages for at least one able-bodied person in every rural, urban poor and lower-middle class household. In the interim, a massive food-for-work programme will be started".