Articles by Indira Hirway

The employment guarantee plan announced in the common minimum programme has been designed to protect the interests of the poor by detailing the rules of the guarantee and imposing penalties for non-complianace. It has also drawn heavily on the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, which has been in operation for 30 years. However, two major drawbacks of the proposed programme are its unrealistic underlying assumptions and short-term vision. The provisions of the employment guarantee programme should be strengthened to achieve the objectives of poverty reduction, construction of productive assets and promoting mainstream employment.

The concepts and methods used by NSSO to net work and workers are not able to capture the work of the poor, particularly of women, satisfactorily. Since that part of the workforce which is not captured by the NSS surveys is not likely to remain stagnant and is subject to increases and declines, depending on the specific situation, it is possible that an increase in this part of the workforce may explain the decline in the worker-population ratio (WPR) in the nineties. The workforce in these 'difficult to measure sectors', such as subsistence work, home-based work or informal work, can be better captured through time use surveys. Using data from the pilot time use survey (1998-99), this paper shows that (a) this survey technique is capable of getting more realistic estimates of workforce and (b) some of the work not captured in the NSS surveys but captured in the time use surveys is likely to explain the changes in the employment situation in the nineties to a considerable extent.

Gujarat has a relatively high per capita income, a diversified economy and workforce and developed financial and capital markets. On the other hand, the state lags behind in terms of the quality of employment and several dimensions of human development. This paper seeks to delineate the profile of Gujarat's development with a view to understanding the mixed results and inferring the likely directions of future development.

in Gujarat Indira Hirway Gujarat is characterised by stark regional disparities in levels of development and poverty. Hi-tech industrialisation in a few well-endowed areas has been coupled with neglect of the relatively backward areas. This selective path of development in the long run will put constraints on the growth rate of the state economy, which in turn will affect the poor adversely since they will not get enough employment. Any number of programmes of poverty eradication cannot compensate for lack of sustainable and healthy development of the economy.

Some Issues Indira Hirway The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of parliament has recently made some recommendations about reshaping the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP). Section I of this paper outlines the major recommendations of the PAC. Section II discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these recommendations and draws some inferences for reshaping IRDP. Section III examines the implications of some of the suggest'ons for wage employment programmes and for planning of rural development in general.