This refers to “Guaranteeing unemployment” (March 18), where you have poured scorn on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and said that it is going to create more unemployment than the employment it is creating. This is pure fantasy on your part.
One, as you say, the scheme has created less than 1 per cent of the total jobs in the country. How can something so small ever influence the overall job market? Everyone who is getting a job under the MNREGA knows it is only for 100 days in a year — they also know that, despite what the government has promised in the Act, the employment is not automatic, nor is there any guarantee that the work will be made available at the time it is being asked for. In other words, no one is going to risk a paying job for something that may or may not happen, never mind what it offers to pay. Would you leave a permanent job just because a short duration one offered you more money? In any case, since the job can be availed of at any point in time, the job-seeker will probably seek it during the time when there is no other job available. Two, you have to visit MNREGA sites to know just what kind of psychological comfort the job provides to the jobless. It is not something journalists in their air-conditioned cabins will understand easily.
Usha Jain, New Delhi
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