Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Scheme

Image Source - Janataserishta

A recent initiative by the Chief Minister of Rajasthan to give families in metropolitan areas 100 days of employment is modelled after the MGNREGA.

About Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Scheme

• Providing work that is available on demand for 100 days per year to help poor and needy families who live in cities.

Areas covered

• Environmental protection, water conservation, heritage preservation, garden upkeep, encroachment removal, removal of unlawful sign boards, hoardings, banners, and sanitation projects will all be carried out.

Eligibility

• Under this initiative, at least 50 persons will be provided employment in each ward of urban local bodies is open to people between the ages of 18 and 60.

Registration

• It is necessary to have a Janaadhar card or its registration sheet.
• At e-Mitra centres, registrations can be completed.

Finances allocated

• For the programme, the government has allotted Rs 800 crore.

Other States' Urban Employment Guarantee Programs:

• Kerala: The Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme (AUEGS), introduced in 2010, aims to improve the livelihood security of people living in cities by promising a hundred days of wage employment to an urban household whose adult members volunteer to perform unskilled manual labour in a fiscal year.
• Himachal Pradesh: The Mukhya Mantri Shahri Ajeevika Guarantee Yojna, which offers each household 120 days of guaranteed pay work every fiscal year, was introduced in 2020 to improve livelihood stability in urban areas.
• Jharkhand: The Mukhyamantri Shramik Yojana, which guarantees 100 days of pay employment per fiscal year, was introduced in 2020 to improve the livelihood security of the state of Jharkhand.

Need for Urban Employment Guarantee Programs in India

Lack of "Guarantee" Plans:

• Launched in 1997, Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) offered wage and self-employment opportunities to the urban poor who were unemployed or underemployed.
• In 2013, the National Urban Livelihoods Mission took the place of the SJSRY (NULM).
• Urban employment programs have existed in India in the past, but none of them was "job guarantee" programs.

Rates of unemployment in cities

• The majority of unemployment data, including that from the Periodic Labour Force Survey and the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), demonstrates that metropolitan areas often have higher jobless rates.
• According to data from August 2022 (CMIE), India's urban unemployment rate is 9.57% (rural unemployment is 7.68%).

Vulnerable Informal Sector:

• The International Labor Organization estimates that of India's 535 million labourers, 398.6 million are employed in low-quality work. The lockout also made risky employment in low-paying, informal jobs in cities visible.
• The characteristics of vulnerable employment include poor pay, low productivity, and challenging working conditions that violate workers' fundamental rights.

Emphasis more upon Rural-focused programs:

• Rural unemployment and poverty are prioritized by the majority of government assistance programs, whether they come from the federal or state governments, like MGNREGA.
• Following the Covid epidemic, Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan was established in 2020 with a budget of Rs 50,000 crore to increase employment and livelihood prospects for migratory workers returning to the rural.

Other projects the Rajasthan government has undertaken

Health Insurance Scheme under Chiranjeevi

• To prevent the impoverished from having to sell their possessions in order to receive care, the state government has made treatment under the Chiranjeevi plan free.

Smartphone availability

• 1.35 crore women will receive cell phones from the government along with three years of free internet access.
• Nelson Gandhi English-medium institutions
• to give kids an English-medium education.

Sanitary towels

• Additionally, there is a plan to give women free sanitary products.
• The Kutchi Bastis Government also discussed the issues slum dwellers suffer and declared that the state government would regularise the Lucchi basis.

Way ahead

• Interventions by the States under the UEG Scheme are a positive move that grants urban dwellers the right to work and upholds the right to life protected by Article 21 of the Constitution.
• Larger towns and cities have received increased attention from initiatives like the Smart Cities Mission and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT).
• It is crucial to shift our focus to enhancing the livelihoods and ecology of metropolitan areas outside of India's largest cities.
• A scheme that guarantees employment in cities raises worker salaries and boosts the economy as a whole.

Also, Read - The tenth NPT Review Conference

Tenth NPT Review Conference

Recently, because of Russia's disagreement, the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference that was held in New York came to a close without adopting a meaningful conclusion.

Nuclear Proliferation Treaty

• The NPT is a global agreement whose main goals are to promote the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and their technology, promote the non-proliferation of nuclear energy, and advance the cause of disarmament.
• The agreement was concluded in 1968, and it became operative in 1970. It currently has 191 member countries.
• India is not a participant.
• In exchange for access to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, it requires nations to abandon all current or future ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.
• It serves as the only legally binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the objective of nuclear-weapon States' disarmament.
• According to the NPT, nuclear-weapon states are those that produced and detonated a nuclear weapon or another nuclear explosive device before January 1, 1967.

India's Position:

• India is one of only five nations that either did not sign the NPT or signed it but later withdrew, joining the likes of Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, and South Sudan on this list.
• India has consistently refused to sign the NPT because it views it as discriminatory.
• Since the international agreements aimed at preventing nuclear proliferation only applied to certain non-nuclear nations and legitimized the five nuclear-armed states' monopolies, India has resisted them.

Concerns Arising Out of Russia’s Disagreement

• Both the Chornobyl nuclear plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986, and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeast Ukraine have been occupied, reigniting fears of a new nuclear calamity.
• Since the height of the Cold War and the deterioration of the worldwide security environment, the threat of the use of nuclear weapons is greater than it has ever been.
• By failing to reach a consensus on a concrete action plan with deadlines and performance indicators to adequately address the rising risks of the nuclear arms race and nuclear weapon use, this NPT conference represents a squandered opportunity to improve the treaty and international security.

India’s Nuclear Developments

• Historical Background: Homi J. Bhabha oversaw the beginning of India's nuclear program in the late 1940s.
• In May 1974 nuclear explosion was carried out by India.
• In May 1998, India conducted a number of nuclear tests to show that it could employ nuclear energy for military reasons.
• Following the 1998 nuclear tests, India announced a concept known as "No First Use" (NFU), which was formally implemented in January 2003.
• It states that only a nuclear strike on Indian soil or on Indian soldiers somewhere else will result in the use of nuclear weapons.
• Major Obstacle: In the immediate years following the Cold War, the US tried to halt India's nuclear and missile programs, which caused the latter country serious anxiety.
• India was subject to US economic penalties after the nuclear tests in May 1998.
• A framework that put an end to India's protracted dispute with the NPT system was developed by the historic India-US civil nuclear project in 2005, a few years after the sanctions.
• The agreement led to the division of India's nuclear civil and military programmes.
• India regained the freedom to expand its nuclear arsenal and begin civilian nuclear cooperation with the rest of the world after a few years of this agreement (which had been halted since India's first nuclear test in May 1974).
• Current Situation: In accordance with its Nuclear Doctrine, India finished the Nuclear Triad in 2018.
• A nuclear triad is a three-sided military force organisation made up of land-based nuclear missiles, submarines equipped with nuclear missiles, and strategic planes carrying nuclear weapons.
• It should be emphasized, nevertheless, that even over 15 years after the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, India has not purchased even a single nuclear reactor from the US.

Also, Read - Must Read - Nuclear Program Of India