INDIA has experienced dramatic social, economic, demographic and cultural transformations in the last couple of decades. These transformations have impinged forcefully on the country’s youth population who, in many respects, have been a bridge generation between the old and the new. They differ greatly from earlier generations in many ways – they are the first generation to have grown up in independent India, have been exposed to mass media and, importantly, been the first to grow up in an era of globalization.

The youth comprise nearly 47% of India’s population. The number of young in the age group of 13-35 years, according to the 2001 Census, was estimated at about 47 crore, which is anticipated to increase to about 57 crore by the year 2016. The availability of a human resource of such magnitude for achieving socio-economic change and technological excellence needs commensurate infrastructure and suitable priorities to maximize its contribution to national development. It is, therefore, necessary that this vibrant and strong resource of the country be focused on not only as a beneficiary but also as a valuable partner in the process of national planning and development. The youth of the country need to be empowered to participate effectively in the process of decision-making at all levels.

There exists a general consensus that the search for appropriate developmental policies failed to deliver the desired results over the past decades, in part as a consequence of underestimating the value of youth power. Appropriate economic policies cannot be conceived independently of their social and political context; these in turn have a direct correlation to the role of civil society, youth empowerment, good governance and the rule of law.

Livelihoods security has become a key social development issue in world affairs. Despite decades of ‘development’, poverty has continued to increase. Existing development approaches may lend themselves to elegant models, but they have not worked. We need to find alternative paths.

The concept of livelihoods encompasses varied ways of living that meet individual, household and community needs. Needs understood holistically include the social, economic, cultural and spiritual. Livelihoods incorporate the goals and processes to empower individuals to meet their basic needs with dignity. Currently there is little coherence about the concept, its definition, threats to its realisation, and policy responsibilities. Few countries or international development partners have adopted livelihoods as central to their national policies or poverty reduction strategies. Even fewer national development plans have programmes and schemes that unify thought and action on livelihoods.

 

There are more than a billion young people in the world of which 850 million live in poor countries. The largest proportion of the world’s poor youth in the age group of 15-24 years live in Asia. Five of the ten countries with the largest concentrations of young people living on less than US $1 a day are found in Asia: India (67.7 million), the People’s Republic of China (33.3 million), Bangladesh (9.9 million), Indonesia (3.1 million) and Vietnam (2.9 million). At the same time, in the last decennium, various Asian countries have made major developmental achievements.

One of the more dramatic changes in India’s youth population in recent decades has been an exponential increase in personal mobility, with liberalization as a major driver. In assessing their life chances, most young people are no longer confined to the opportunities in their local area, as was the case with many earlier. Perhaps the most universal feature of population mobility is that it is selective of young adults.

The world community is aware of the special needs of the youth. The first recognition of this came when the United Nations declared 1985 as the International Year of Youth (IYY) with the banner theme ‘participation, development and peace’. Since then the world has experienced fundamental political, social, economic and cultural changes. The Youth Development Summit in Cairo (2002), drew utmost attention of the member countries about the need for ensuring livelihood opportunities for the young people in their national policies, plans and programmes.

As a follow up to the IYY, the UN General Assembly in its 50th session, Agenda item 105, adopted the world programme of action for youth which went beyond stating that the youth are a major human resource for development and key agents for social change, economic progress and technological innovations. The assembly identified ten priority areas for interventions: education, employment, hunger and poverty, health, environment, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, leisure time activities, development of girls and young women and the full and effective participation of youth in the life of society and in the decision-making. It invited governments, NGOs, public and private sectors and youth organizations to implement the Programme of Action (POA) by undertaking relevant activities outlined in the POA.

 

India’s National Youth Policy, 2003 affirms the national commitment for composite and all-round development of youth and seeks to establish an all India perspective to fulfil their legitimate aspirations and empower them to successfully accomplishing the challenging task of national reconstruction and social change that lie ahead. In this regard, the policy recognizes four thrust areas, i.e. youth empowerment, gender justice, inter-sectoral approach, and information and research network. It also highlights eight key sectors of youth development. They are education, training and empowerment, health, environment, sports and recreation, art and culture, science and technology, and civics and citizenship.

The National Youth Policy has specifically acknowledged the need for education and training of young people to make them socially useful and economically productive. The policy directs the government to ensure gainful employment and adequate opportunities for the personal development and advancement of those who are not currently employed. It mandates the government to provide social safety nets and protection to the young people from all manner of exploitation. Of the key sectors of youth concern identified by the national policy, training and employment is a priority leading to real youth empowerment.

 

Youth empowerment is central to any youth development effort. In essence, it means helping young people with optimum opportunities to contribute to the economic, social and cultural advancement of their families, community and the country enabling them to reach their full potential. Further, the National Commission for Youth has identified three dimensions of youth empowerment: (i) Young people are empowered when they are free to make informed decisions, to take actions based on their decision and simultaneously accept responsibility for the consequences of that decision and action; (ii) Generating enabling conditions and climate in which young people can act on their own behalf and on their own terms without external interventions; and (iii) Creating a stable environment for them to grow up and facilitate their eventual access to an economic and social base supported by appropriate legal and administrative framework and a positive value system.

As the ideal understanding of sustainable livelihoods is a process of mediation between economic, social and environment objectives, and between the objectives of government, business and civil society, it is essential to ensure an equality of bargaining power and to institutionalize the roles of the three sectors for environment management.

For a livelihood to be sustainable it must be adaptive and able to withstand stress. It should also safeguard rather than damage the natural environment. Sustainable livelihoods put people first and are based on the belief that local struggles against poverty will lead us to development strategies that work. They can be understood as both a goal and an approach.

 

The concept of livelihoods security complements that of human development by ensuring that the benefits of development reach the most vulnerable groups and that the downside risks of development and impacts of conflict are addressed to ensure security to the lives and livelihoods of individuals and communities.

Development planners are working to integrate the livelihood security concept into local, regional and national development process through practical applications. Defining livelihood security as the removal or reduction of vulnerability to economic, environmental, social and cultural threats that undermine progressive development of communities, the approach is to increase human security for the sustainable livelihoods of vulnerable communities by: (i) mainstreaming livelihood security concerns into development policy and local/regional development planning; (ii) building capacity to incorporate human security into local development planning; and (iii) increasing opportunities for the inclusion of the most vulnerable communities into mainstream economic and social development process.

 

Communities with sustainable livelihoods are able to emerge from poverty and maintain an informal safety-net mechanism when subject to shocks triggered by a financial crisis, environmental destruction, or conflict as well as chronic problems such as illness, death of the breadwinner, indebtedness, social oppression, and seasonal variations in vulnerability. Sustainable livelihoods are a valuable means to ensure human security with the potential to address several dimensions of vulnerability. Emphasis is laid on mobilization of the community, in particular women, and expanding women’s livelihoods.

Asset base protection and improvement with a focus on natural resources, social assets and access to finance are the key to a social safety net. The lives and livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable groups in rural and remote areas are directly dependent on the natural resource base. Destruction of the natural resource base, including land, water and forest is seriously threatening human security. The move towards decentralized, participatory, local management of natural resources in the past couple of decades has highlighted the important role of the community as a unit for natural resource management.

Employment generation for the youth, who are the most productive section of society, has to be the highest priority of the government. Past experience has shown that economic growth does not always generate the needed employment. Employment growth in rural India has already slowed down to 1.3% per annum (IDR, 2004-05). Aware of this, the Planning Commission and the government have already reviewed the employment strategy and started segmenting the youth into various categories and targeting them with new employment generation and guarantee schemes.

 

The strategy for employment generation as recommended by the Task Force in the Planning Commission is based on intervention in five major areas:

1. Accelerating the rate of growth of GDP, with a particular emphasis on sectors likely to ensure the spread of income to the low-income segments of the labour force.

2. Pursuing appropriate sectoral policies in individual sectors, which are particularly important for employment generation. These sector level policies must be broadly consistent with the overall objective of accelerating GDP growth.

3. Implementing focused special programmes for creating additional employment of enhancing income generation from existing activities aimed at helping vulnerable groups that may not be sufficiently benefited by the more general growth promoting policies.

4. Pursuing suitable policies for education and skill development which would upgrade the quality of the labour force and make it capable of supporting a growth process that generates high quality jobs.

5. Ensuring that the policy and legal environment governing the labour market encourages labour absorption, especially in the organized sector.

The continuation of economic growth at an average of about 6.5% will not yield a significant improvement in the employment situation, especially the extent of open unemployment. The expected annual addition to the labour force is about 8.7 million per year over the next ten years. We need to accelerate GDP growth to a range between 8% and 9% to achieve our objective of generating enough additional employment to provide productive employment opportunities and ensure a sufficient regulation of labour markets in general to improve the quality of existing employment.

 

There is an urgent need to increase public investment in agriculture, especially in irrigation and water management. The ability to do so is severely constrained by resource availability at the state level. Part of the solution lies in bringing about a general improvement in the resources position of the states. However, this can be supplemented by restructuring the existing allocation of resources to agriculture by reducing subsidies and increasing user charges (e.g. in power, irrigation and fertiliser) and devoting the resources thus mobilised to increasing public investment in this sector.

Agricultural exports are typically labour intensive, and their potential has not been adequately exploited in the past. Steps are needed to increase agricultural exports to support the diversification of agriculture, which is an important element in achieving faster agricultural growth in the future. Export controls on agricultural products should be abolished and other instruments used to achieve domestic price objectives which are sought to be achieved through export controls.

Almost 70% of the total employment opportunities generated over the next ten years are likely to be in the services sector. Some of the sector policy issues constraining growth of services in critical sectors where growth could lead to faster growth in employment and improvement in the quality of employment are mentioned below.

India’s potential for both domestic and international tourism is greatly underutilised. Expansion in international tourism could contribute a substantial expansion in high quality employment opportunities in the years ahead. Hotel room capacity in major Indian tourist centres (especially of the mid-price variety) is not adequate to support an expanded flow of tourists. Local authorities must take steps to earmark available land for hotel construction and expedite grant of necessary permissions for setting up of good quality hotels at reasonable prices. Existing policy on bilateral air agreements needs to be urgently reviewed to ensure sufficient expansion in airline seat capacity to India. Visa regime needs to be liberalised to allow tourists to obtain a tourist visa on arrival at the airport, as is the practice in many important tourist destinations.

 

Information Technology holds out promising prospects for creation of high quality employment for skilled workers in software development and in a wide range of IT enabled services. The current boom in the IT sector is an indicator of the opportunities. Government policy must give high priority to ensuring that the environment remains conducive to growth. High quality telecommunications and domestic and international connectivity with adequate band width is critical.

The government should continuously monitor developments in this sector and especially our performance against those of our emerging competitors internationally, to identify constraints in competitiveness and the need for policy modifications, if any.

Real estate development, because of the construction activity it involves, is one of the most labour intensive sectors and can generate a large number of work opportunities. However, laws governing land development and rent control have pushed the market underground and restricted the growth of this sector.

 

Emergence of modern and large transport companies will not only improve the efficiency of the sector but also provide better working conditions to the workers in this sector and in associated roadside activities like repair services etc. Development of high quality roads and establishment of mechanised truck terminals are necessary to make this possible.

The retail trade in India is characterised by small establishments and modernising it by involving large department stores is often considered detrimental to the employment objective. This may not be necessarily true. The switch to modern retailing will certainly improve the quality of employment in the sector. It will also help to develop effective supply chains linking producers with potential consumers and provide quick feedback to producers on consumer tastes. This can bring many potential producers into the market without having to worry about marketing their output.

There is considerable scope for expansion of employment in provision of education and health services. Though much of the expansion is expected to come from the public sector, there is also room to consider a combination of public and private sectors. The role of private sector in improving the reach of educational facilities is already felt in cities and towns. State governments should encourage the role of the private sector by replacing controls with a modern regulatory system that provides right atmosphere for private participation.

In addition to service sector activities discussed above, a host of new activities are likely to gain significance in the future that will provide new opportunities for employment.

As youth unemployment constitutes a major part of the overall national problem, any strategies formulated to combat it cannot be totally divorced from the overall employment strategy. However, the fact that the majority of youth would be first-time entrants to the labour force calls for certain special measures, short and long-term, to tackle the problem. Important among these are measures aimed at (a) promoting employability of youth by investing in education and vocational training and improving the impact of such investments, (b) giving the same opportunity for young women as to young men, (c) developing entrepreneurship, making it easier to start and run enterprises to provide more and better jobs for the youth, (d) placing employment creation at the centre of macro-economic policy and (e) installing efficient labour market institutions to guide and support youth in their transition from vocational preparation to the pursuit of chosen vocations.

 

Some of the programmes/schemes of Government of India focusing on livelihoods issue are discussed below.

Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana: Launched in April 1999, the objective of the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) is to bring the assisted poor families (swarozgaries) above the poverty line by ensuring appreciable sustained level of income over a period of time. This objective is to be achieved by inter alia organising the rural poor into self help groups (SHGs) through the process of social mobilization, their training and capacity building and provision of income generating assets. The SHG approach helps the poor to build their self-confidence through community action. Interactions in group meetings and collective decision-making enables them in identification and prioritization of their needs and resources. It is expected that this process would ultimately lead to the strengthening and socio-economic empowerment of the rural poor as well as improve their collective bargaining power.

 

Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana: The primary objective Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) is to provide additional and supplementary wage employment and thereby provide food security and improve nutritional levels in all rural areas. The secondary objective is the creation of durable community, social and economic assets and infrastructural development in rural areas. The programme is being implemented as a centrally sponsored scheme on cost sharing basis between the Centre and the states in the ratio of 75:25 of the cash component of the programme.

The SGRY is open to all rural poor who are in need of wage employment and desire to do manual and unskilled work in and around their village/habitat. The programme is self-targeting in nature. While providing wage employment, preference shall be given to agricultural wage earners, non-agricultural unskilled wage earners, marginal farmers, the persons affected due to calamities, women, members of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and parents of child labour withdrawn from hazardous occupations, parents of handicapped children or adult children of handicapped parents who are desirous of working for wage employment.

 

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (NREGA) guarantees 100 days of employment in a financial year to any rural household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work. The act is in force initially in 200 districts, and will be extended gradually to other areas notified by the central government. It will cover the whole country within five years.

This act is an important step towards the realization of the right to work. It is also expected to enhance people’s livelihoods on a sustained basis, by developing the economic and social infrastructure in rural areas. The choice of works seeks to address the causes of chronic poverty such as drought, deforestation and soil erosion. Effectively implemented, the employment generated under the act has the potential of transforming the geography of poverty.

NREGA calls for the formulation of a Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (REGS) by each state government within six months of the date of commencement of the act. The purpose of the scheme is to give effect to the legal guarantee of work by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed employment to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work subject to the conditions of this act. Each Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is required to have the minimum features specified in Schedule I and Schedule II of the Act.

There are two dimensions to livelihoods security – one related to reducing insecurities caused by chronic poverty and the other to using economic development and security as a means to bring peace to a region. The lack of education increases vulnerability as it limits the opportunities for earning a livelihood, receiving entitlements and protection. While increasing access to basic education is being stressed on one hand, increased access to the new Information and Communication Technologies is being stressed on the other to increase people’s opportunities to emerge from poverty. Vocational skills and knowledge sharing are also important to further economic development.

Health is another component of livelihoods security. Health for livelihoods security can be achieved through reduced vulnerability to disease and increased access to health services. To reduce vulnerability to disease, the spread of infectious diseases needs to be controlled while improving access to basic services such as water and sanitation needs. Access to health services is essential to cure disease as well as to reduce infant and maternal mortality which are high in many parts of the country, particularly in the remote areas. Health services include both curative and preventive strategies.

 

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the present youth generation in shaping the future prosperity, sustainability and stability of the country. They are the first generation to feel the full impact of globalization and partly, as a result, are strongly differentiated from earlier cohorts passing through this lifecycle stage. This presents both challenges and opportunities. The key point is that while globalization promotes opportunities for some, by no means does it do so for all. Moreover its negative fallout is disproportionately experienced by other groups lower down in the socio-economic ladder. Handling this contradiction remains our greatest policy challenge.

 

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