NREGA scheme gets thumbs up from ILO

New Delhi, May 30 (PTI) The ruling United Progressive
Alliance's (UPA) flagship programme NREGA has got the thumbs
up from the ILO, which has said that had it not been for the
scheme, the labour class in India would have been badly hit by
the recession.

Lauding the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(NREGA) that guarantees hundred days of employment to the
rural work force, the ILO in its latest report has said that
the social protection scheme "stands to offset the potential
shock to the poor in this time of recession".

"The scheme has brought benefit to thousands of families
since its implementation," the report said.

The flagship programme of the government launched in 2006
has provided employment to more than 4.49 crore households so
far. It was allocated Rs 16,000 crore in 2008-09.

The UPA Government made the success of the programme a
major poll issue in the Lok Sabha elections in trying to woo
voters in rural areas.

It is now contemplating to come up with the second NREGA
covering the urban poor this time. The government is also
considering to extend the benefit of the programme to 365
days.

The ILO report, however, presented a grim picture of the
overall job scenario across the globe as it raised upward the
unemployment figure between 21 crore to 23 crore in 2009.

It said the recovery in the labour market could take as
long as four to five years after the recovery of the economy
and warned that "the global job crisis may persist for the
next several years."

It said South Asia will have the most number of working
poor in the world due to the prevailing economic crisis.

India, though, would be less susceptible to severe
downturn than more export oriented economies because of its
large domestic market, it said.

As regards to the youth, the report said young people are
2.8 times as likely to be unemployed than adults at the global
level.

The report said that over 38 crore workers or 61 per cent
of the total workforce in South Asia, including India, would
be hit hard by the economic crisis.

The number of vulnerable workers in the region is also
expected to rise to almost 79 per cent of all workers, it said
while underscoring the need to include social protection
measures in crisis response packages.

Importantly, it emphasised on promoting 'global jobs
pact' and said the pact will be discussed in details at the
annual labour conference at Geneva in June. PTI SGI
RKM