Employment Generation Programmes

To tackle the twin problems of growing unemployment and poverty in India, the government has come up with some employment generation and poverty alleviation programmes. A special group for creating 10 million employment opportunities per year over the 10th plan period was constituted by the Planning Commission. The group recommended that besides the employment generated presently, certain labour intensive sectors like agriculture, small industries and tourism need to be promoted. This way, an additional 20 million jobs can be created.

Some of the programmes are:

Swarnjayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana
It was launched in April 1999 by merging programs like IRDP, TRYSEM, DWCRA etc into a single self employment scheme.

Food for Work Programme
It was launched in February 2001 to give food thrugh wage employment in the drought affected areas in eight states. Wages are paid by the state governments partly in cash and partly in foodgrains. These are provided free of cost by the centre to the drought affected states.

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana
This was launched in December 2000 to provide connectivity to all rural areas with a population of more than 1000 by the year 2003 and with a population of more than 500 by the year 2007 through good roads.

Samagra Awas Yojana
It was launched in 1999-2000 as a housing scheme to ensure provision of shelter, sanitation and safe drinking water.

Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana
This programme was launched in 2000-2001 focussing on five important areas of village development, health, drinking water, primary education, housing and rural roads with the aim of improving the quality of life of people in rural areas.

Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana
It was launched in September 2001 to provide wage employment and food security in rural areas and also to create durable economic ans social assets.

Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana
It was launched in April 1999 by restructuring the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and is implemented by Gram Panchayats for creating productive community assets.