A new model of employment creation in rural India | Sunil Ray

The question is: How to create productive and sustainable employment opportunities in rural India? I am here putting the question straight because I am yet to see any significant measure available to resolve the crisis of uninterrupted growth of unemployment particularly in rural India. Hardly any attempt is made to look beyond what is being suggested or implemented traditionally for decades. No worthwhile outcome the rural economy is left with as a result. The academic community is primarily busy with projecting employment /unemployment scenario at the macro level based on the published data indicating how precarious the situation particularly the educated folk is facing and going to face. It is a story which is repetitive that eventually fix the parameter of containment on the basis of higher degree of analytical beauty. Such a trash exercise does colonize our minds and never allows us to look beyond to ask as to how to extricate particularly the rural economy from such a critical and depressing development entanglement even in the market economy.

It is against this backdrop that I find my engagement significant in an attempt to explore avenues for employment creation for the unemployed in rural India. While employment creation, not distressed of course, but productive, is the single most development challenge today that one can hardly escape from, we must ask the question: how to meet it? Is it going to be met adequately and desirably within the ‘business as usual ‘proposal with an unshakable faith in ‘trickle down ‘effect of market fundamentalism for employment creation primarily depending upon large investment of the corporate capital? Not at all. While I do not intend to go in to the details of the debate around this aspect, but it may be worthwhile to point out here is that the employment elasticity of corporate capital is too low to accept as the means of redressal of unemployment problem which is growing at a frightening scale. Similarly, govt/public sector , even if we assume all posts that are lying vacant, are filled up ( a wild imagination though!), the problem is bound to aggravate further particularly in rural India which is prone to recurrent draught and flood hence extremely vulnerable to uncertain agricultural performance. However, such an uncertain situation never dampens the spirit of millions of educated boys and girls living in the rural areas for looking forward for their productive engagement in income generating activities. Hence, given the limitations the challenge is how to create space for the educated folk in the rural economy which might transform itself through creation of employment and income opportunities for them. It is only low capital- based but efficient local development process can create the space in the rural economy for their dignified employment opportunities on a sustainable basis. And, this is possible to achieve, I argue, by way of instituting an alternative mode of employment creation through new models like collective entrepreneurship structure, the so-called ‘niche structure’. The alternative route to employment creation in rural India as suggested by this model may extricate the rural economy which is caught up by what is called low level equilibrium trap. For, it could trigger off consumption demand to rise that in turn could lead to a rise in investment and create employment.

Niche structure

Niche structure is a new collective entrepreneurial structure for all types of economic activities with new practices and behavior organized in the form of self-organization as a part of commons. It gives rise to innumerable associated producers’ self –organizations in all lines of activities including manufacturing, processing, repairing, constructing, servicing such as education and health care services trading, marketing, business etc. They are collective enterprises (not centric to individual ownership), but not co-operatives in the traditional sense, with low capital base, not being appendage to the mainstream economic structure. They maintain relative autonomy. It is reinvention of workers’ cooperatives, an independent creation of the workers not as a protégé either of the government or of the large capital. It can even take the support of the state but being fully conscious that it is not ruled by it. Self-organization, a collective enterprise in which workers themselves are owners.

What matters significantly is how one calibrates utilization of material resources for job creation at the decentralized level. The production processes and services may be encouraged to grow that fully internalize costs, involve renewable energies, zero emission, continued recycling of natural resources and restoration of Earth’s eco system. Once niche structure is constructed, it will install new production and service processes, accordingly. They are small scale ventures but energy- efficient, non-polluting and community- oriented. They have the potential to create local jobs through investment in green technologies. The local resource base comprising of agricultural, natural, human and animal resources are expected to offer wider scope for opening up of varieties of self –managed collective entrepreneurial activities at the decentralized level much beyond what is traditionally understood. The following steps are suggested for implementation of the model.

STEPS

Step 1

Formation of a committee at zilla parishad comprising of peoples’ representative at the panchyat level/zilla parishad level, technical experts, concerned government officials etc in order to facilitate and monitor growth of the activities as suggested here. A separate administrative cell may be created at the Zilla parishad level exclusively for the purpose of creating employment opportunities for the unemployed in the rural areas.

Step 2

Dividing the state in to several agro climatic zones for launching new entrepreneurial activities based on the local ecosystem and resource base.

Step 3

Undertaking resource mapping zone wise. It must be completed before embarking on any non-farm activities. Resource mapping includes (1) natural resources (2) agricultural resources( 3) skilled human resources apart from traditional skilled human resources (4) unemployed educate youth ( associated with the level) and unemployed uneducated youth (5) animal resources and their by-products (6) existing status of manufacturing, servicing and processing and business (7) status of health- care system (8) status of educational services from primary school to coaching centers (9) status of repairing works (10) status of agricultural marketing (11) status of marketing of animal and their by –products

Step 4

Zone wise exploration of new entrepreneurial activities. Once resource mapping is completed, it will be easier to identify the status of utilization of the existing resources and the ones that are untapped. It is equally important to underline the problems of marketing of agricultural and manufacturing goods and services. In other words, one will get an overall understanding about the status of existing status of both forward and backward product lines, enough to indicate the existing potential for entrepreneurial activities to start off. It is here that government must have to play pro-active role in order to facilitate the sought –after process of transformation through developing contact with different scientific and technology institutions such as Central food Technology Institute ( CFTRI), Central science and Technology institute ( CSIR) , agricultural universities or any other techno-scientific institutions located in Rajasthan or elsewhere in the country for transfer of appropriate technology. The basic purpose is to explore what are the new product processing/service lines that can come up in this concerned ecological zone and what appropriate technology is required for the proposed entrepreneurial activities both agro and non-agro based to come up.

Step 5

The next step is to examine feasibility of such activities from both supply and demand side. Associated with this, is to examine particularly those sources that provide forward linkages of the product and services so as to ensure sustainability of the activity.

Step 6

Identification of unemployed youths who are willing to join this collective endeavor as self-organization and formation of the collectives.

Step 7

Investment and management of the seed capital in the public-private partnership can be examined if it works well in this respect although essentially it is conceived as a private entity. Even if the initial investment is partly made by the government, it may be in form of cheap loan. However, it may be necessary to examine several options and choose the one that works well.

Step 8

Appropriate and relevant skill development programme may be undertaken for those who are identified as willing to join this collective enterprise. The infrastructure available to the state for skill development at present may be used and oriented towards developing skill which is actually required as indicated by the activities to come up.

This is the model to be put in action. However, there are several rooms in it for its further improvement and make it more appropriate to the local conditions. The sole objective is to develop the economy of the state through developing the rural economy. The only route which is discernable is creation of sustainable employment and income generation of the rural youths based on the growth of a large number low capital based new collective entrepreneurial activities in the rural areas as I have indicated here.

(Author: Sunil Ray, Former Director, A.N.Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna and professor of Economics at the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur. He was also Head, the Economics Department and Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Central University of South Bihar)