Government to bring Act to guarantee employment

The government is set to guarantee employment to reduce poverty.
The proposed Employment Guarantee Bill — that has got the principal approval from the last week's cabinet — is based on rights approach that every adult citizen has a right to employment, according to the vice chair of National Planning Commission (NPC) Deependra Bahadur Kshetry.
“An adult person from 16 years of age to 65 of a household must get minimum 100-day employment in a fiscal year," he said, adding that the government will pay 50 per cent of the minimum wage — as unemployment benefit — of the 100-day, if a recorded unemployed person remains unemployed throughout the fiscal year.
The national think tank proposed Bill is currently at the Ministry of Law for the final approval. After the final go ahead from the Ministry of Law, it will again be sent to the cabinet to further send it to the Parliament for discussion and will be passed, the vice chair added.
A brainchild of the planning commission, the proposed Bill envisions a Employment Guarantee Trust at the centre level apart from a local committee under Village Development Committee (VDC), a district committee under District Development Committee (DDC) and a central level coordination committee. The local level committees will keep records of unemployed and distribute unemployment benefits, whereas the central level coordination committee that include 16 secretaries of different ministries, in coordination of vice chair of the National Planning Commission, will coordinate the scheme across the country.
The bill — inspired by India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act — aims at reducing the poverty by guaranteeing people hundred days of wage-employment in a fiscal year to a household, whose adult members volunteer to do labour intensive work. "But one has to get 'Unemployed Identity Card' to claim the benefit," he added.
Similarly, the employers will also be encouraged by incentives. “The employers, who employ over 50 per cent of the recorded unemployed persons according to local committees' recommendation, in the local development activities will get 25 per cent of the total paid wages refund from the central coordination committee," Kshetry said, adding that it will encourage the local employers to recruit the recorded unemployed persons.
Though, experts are not convinced of the government's idea of reducing poverty through employment guarantee as poverty is a cross-cutting issue, the planning commission is targeting basically labour intensive works and encourage unskilled people to be involved in the local development activities — as their rights — through Consumers Groups and local agencies that must employ the recorded unemployed persons after the Act comes to effect.