Its been around four months approximately since we have
started work as PMRDF's. Have been thinking of blogging for the past few months, but never got to doing it. Better late than never, here comes my first post.
In this blog entry I am planning to talk about the employment
generation program of the state of Andhra Pradesh. Just to give a bit of
background, We PMRDF's in Andhra pradesh have a mandate of evaluating one
government scheme every month. so last month we fellows chose " Rajiv Yuva
Kiranalu" which is the employment generation program of AP. This scheme
was conceived to build job specific skills among unemployed youth and place
them in appropriate jobs. It has set a target of providing employment for 15
lakh youth. This is to be acheived on a mission mode.
The scheme is implemented in a public private partnerhip
model. Government signs MOU with training partners who are responsible for the
training and placement of the candidates and are in turn paid by the govt. for
these services. But the innovation here is in the design of the payment system.
The training partners are paid in stages. First 25 % when the batch starts,
second 40 % when placements are done, the next 25 % if the candidate stays on
in the job for 3 months and the last 10 % if the candidate stays on in the job
for an year. So there is an incentive for the training partner not only to
provide a job but also provide such a job which can retain the candidates in
the job.
Now as a part of my study I looked at candidates who got
trained and placed majorly in the tribal areas of ITDA Rampachodavaram( which
has around 7 blocks) which is where I am working. The official stats from the
website state that from ITDA Rampachodavaram around 852 were trained of which
682 candidates were placed. Allmost all of these jobs are in urban areas.
Hyderabad alone accounts for around 50 % percent of these 682 jobs. So, I took
a certain sample( around 50 candidates) of candidates and tried to find out the
present staus of their job.
When I met with these candidates I realized that the drop out
rate of these candidates was around 80 %. So, basically candidates even after
getting a job offer were not continuing in their jobs. Next step was to
find out why they were dropping out. Some of the main reasons for the
candidates dropping out were less salary, food & accomodation issues in the
urban areas, not wanting to stay away from home, further studies, too much
work,marriage etc... Of the above reasons low salary was the major of all.
offcial stats show that around 75 % of the candidates earn less than Rs.6000.
In some cases this salary has a food and accomodation component which further
reduces the in hand salary that the candidate receives. Also if you look at the
payments made to the training partners, many of the training partners do not
even claim the last 35 % ( it was 25 % last year) which is paid if they retain
the candidates. That means there are running their operations with 65 or 75 %
of money they are supposed to receive. So they will have to reduce their costs
to break even which will impact the quality of training.
Why are so many candidates dropping out? First of all
majority of people always prefer to work some where near their home. They will
only leave to work in distant areas away from their homes only if they think
they are able to earn considerably more than they can near their home town's.
In the present case of the above scheme most of the jobs are low paying jobs
and this coupled with the high costs in urban areas where these jobs are
located does not leave the candidates with any savings. Even when they take up
the job, they have to compromise a lot on their food and accomodation to be
able to save some money. Some others come back to continue their futher
education and in case of girls, marriage is another big reason for drop out.
So what should be done? of course the ideal scenario is when
we can creare rural employment so that the candidates can stay near their homes
and work. Also since rural areas have low costs of living, even low salaries
might result in savings. But the problem here is our rural economies are not so
vibrant to create many job opportunities unlike urban economies. So, urban
employment still holds the key to create employment in huge numbers. For a job
in urban environment to be sustainable the salaries have to increase. One of the
recommendations we made was to change the payment system to incentivize the
training partners to get candidates better paying jobs. So in the present 4
step payment process, 40 % is paid in the second stage when placements are
done. We can increase this amount to say 60 % if the salary is above say
Rs.7500 and say 70 % if the salary is above say Rs.9000 etc... So we are saying
there will be variable pay in the second stage based on how high the salary is.
This should act as an incentive for the training partner to provide better
paying jobs. Also at the same time continuing efforts should be made to promote
rural employment. We should also try to look at those urban jobs that can be
shifted to rural areas like rural BPO's, rural tourism etc...
My idea of writing this blog is to share my work with other
fellows working in other districts and at the same with everybody interested in
development. I also think this way it will act as a platform for discussions.
So please go ahead and post your comments and criticism's on the above.
PS: Not proof read, so pardon me for any mistakes.
