Centre plans to extend job guarantee scheme to cities

The government is considering extending its flagship jobs programme in villages to workers in cities left unemployed by the pandemic- induced lockdowns, a government official said.

The programme, when approved, may be rolled out in smaller cities and initially cost about Rs 35,000 crore ($ 4.8 billion), said Sanjay Kumar, a joint secretary in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

"The government has been considering this idea since last year," he said. "The pandemic gave a push to this discussion."

The government is already spending more than Rs 1 lakh crore on the rural jobs programme, MGNREGA, this year, under which workers in the hinterland can earn a guaranteed minimum daily wage of Rs 202 for at least 100 days a year. An urban version of the plan will soften the blow on citizens most affected by the coronavirus fallout, which has set Asia's third- largest economy on course for its deepest contraction in history.

The idea is to start with smaller towns because bigcity projects typically need professional expertise, Kumar said.

The rural programme involves employing people for local public works projects such as road building, well digging and reforestation. It now covers more than 270 million people and was used as a tool to provide employment to migrant workers returning from cities amid the lockdown.

That said, Covid- 19 also decimated livelihoods in urban India, creating a new underclass of workers who are being pushed into poverty, according to an analysis by the London School of Economics.

More than 121 million people lost jobs in April.

"A national level commitment to overcome the livelihood crisis is therefore essential for preventing urban workers from falling into poverty and for countervailing the sharp and sudden rise in inequality," wrote Shania Bhalotia, Swati Dhingra and Fjolla Kondirolli, the authors of the report— City of dreams no more: The impact of Covid- 19 on urban workers in India— published by LSE's Centre for Economic Performance.

Economic affairs secretary Tarun Bajaj earlier spoke of the programme in an interview to a newspaper, raising expectation of a fiscal boost after a previously announced Rs 21lakh crore support package fell short in terms of actual outgo.