The Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme (AUEGS) aims to hit 50 lakh person-days of work this year, having almost completed the 35 lakh workdays for the ₹100 crore allocated this year by the State government for the scheme.
The works under the scheme are also proposed to be carried out in more diverse areas, with dairy farmers too receiving the benefits and maintenance and clean-up of public toilets as well included under possible works.
According to project officials, the government, which fully funds the scheme, had earlier made it clear that more funds will be set aside for the scheme if the allocated funds are spent.
"As on Tuesday, we have hit 35 lakh person-days and the urban local bodies have spent the ₹96 crore already allocated to them. The remaining ₹4 crore will also be spent soon. This year, most of the Corporations have improved their performance, but much of the demand is still in areas that have recently become urban local bodies and still retain a rural character, such as Tanur, Wadakkanchery and Kottarakara," said Subodh S., project officer.
MGNREG scheme model
Kerala became the first State to launch an employment guarantee scheme for urban areas with the launch of the Ayyankali scheme, modelled around the MGNREG scheme, in 2010. Out of the 2.5 lakh workers registered across the State, 1.5 lakh are active workers. Among them, as many as 90% are women.
The scheme was, however, slow to pick up in the initial years due to less demand, lack of awareness and low allocations. The fund allocation, which was at ₹15 crore in 2015, has increased considerably with ₹100 crore allocated in the current and previous years, and ₹75 crore and ₹50 crore in the preceding years. The daily wage of ₹291 on a par with MGNREGS wages is, however, still low by urban living standards.
In the past three years, the scheme has also been combined with Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and Livelihood Inclusion and Financial Empowerment (LIFE) housing scheme as per which beneficiaries receive an amount equivalent to 90 person-days of work, or close to ₹30,000, in addition to the ₹4 lakh allocated in the housing scheme for participating in the house construction. The linking of the job guarantee scheme with the housing schemes was one factor in increasing the total person-days of work generated over the past few years.
After the COVID-19 outbreak and a spate of job losses, economists and activists nationwide had pointed out the need for an urban employment guarantee scheme on the lines of the one run in Kerala, Jharkhand and Odisha to absorb the many who have lost their livelihood due to the pandemic.
