The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Include human development work in job programme'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 28, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Include human development work in job programme'

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, NOV. 27. The Centre's employment guarantee programme (EGP) for women should be enlarged to include additional activities targeting human development.

There should be a shift from unskilled to skilled work, Pedro Medrano, Country Director of the World Food Programme India, suggested here yesterday.

He was delivering the millennium lecture on "Women, food-for-work and human development," organised by The Hindu Media Resources Centre, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.

Mr. Pedro Medrano said the definition of work under EGP should be redefined to include management of food preparation and serving mid-day meal in primary schools in villages, assisting para-medical workers in immunisation programmes and health check-up services, running creches for children of working mothers, repairs to and maintenance of water and sanitation facilities, managing community food banks and providing water supply to anganwadi centres.

At present only works involving physical labour for creation of community assets such as link roads, village ponds and other small-scale infrastructure were included in the programme.

There was a possibility that many women would not stand the strain of physical labour.

The rationale for including new schemes, he said, was to enhance their efficacy and impact as it was not possible to achieve the targets envisaged in the schemes with the given manpower.

For example, an anganwadi worker was supposed to manage 80-plus children as well as pregnant and nursing mothers, besides providing nutritional supplement, filling out health cards and working for non-formal education programmes. A health worker was now serving a population of 5,000.

By describing the new schemes as food for human development, Mr. Pedro Medrano said, they could function as sub-programmes within the EGP which would enhance the delivery of the original scheme, be it the anganwadi or health programme.

While it would provide additional opportunity to work without much strain, the community at large would benefit by the enhanced efficiency of social services such as the primary school, anganwadi centres and health sub-centres.

Accountability deficit

Regretting the lack of accountability in implementation of various programmes, he said there was an accountability deficit in the country.

Officials in charge of the programmes thought that they were accountable only to their superiors and not to the people for whom the programmes were being implemented. It was a serious state of affairs and this mindset should be changed, he felt.

The chairman of the foundation, M.S. Swaminathan, said there was lack of accountability not only among officials but even between human beings.

It was an important element in life. Unfortunately this was lacking in the country.

He endorsed the view of Mr. Pedro Medrano that there should be a shift in the concept of the food-for-work programme from unskilled to skilled work.

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