The proposal, a version of which has been previously presented to the Congress and to a foundation working with other Opposition parties, has been released in a policy paper titled ‘Strengthening towns through sustainable employment’.

With rising unemployment becoming a major poll issue, and several political parties proposing solutions for it in their election manifestos, a group of labour researchers have proposed a national urban job guarantee programme for small towns.

They estimate that the scheme would benefit 3 to 5 crore people and cost 1.7% of the GDP if it covers one adult per household in the 4,000-odd towns that have a population of less than 10 lakh people.

The proposal, a version of which has been previously presented to the Congress party and to a foundation working with other Opposition parties, was released on Friday in a policy paper titled ‘Strengthening towns through sustainable employment’.

The paper has been drafted by Azim Premji University’s Centre for Sustainable Employment, which also publishes the annual State of Working India report.

According to leaked data from the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), unemployment rate is at a 45-year high of 6.1%, spiking to 7.8% in urban areas. There is open unemployment of about 20% among educated youth.

The proposal suggests a two pronged approach to address this jobs crisis. Workers who have not completed Class 12 would be eligible for 100 days of guaranteed employment each year at ₹500 per day. Those who have education beyond Class 12 would be provided apprenticeship work, mostly in monitoring and surveying for public offices, schools, hospitals and other institutions, and paid a stipend of ₹13,000 per month for a contiguous period of five months.

“For me, it is a purposeful political choice that the effective rate of pay will be ₹500/day irrespective of the level of education,” said Rajendran Narayan, one of the authors of the paper. “It’s going away from the reductive notion of what is skilled versus unskilled work…Construction work also requires a lot of skill.” He also emphasised that apart from creating public assets such as traditional city infrastructure, the scheme proposed a new set “green jobs” which would create and restore the urban commons such as lakes, parks and waste land. Another set of jobs will address the urban “care deficit” and provide carers for children, elderly and disabled.

The proposal recommends an 80:20 split in funding between Centre and states, with wage payment made through urban local bodies. The annual estimated programme budget would range from 1.7 to 2.7 % of GDP depending on whether employment is guaranteed to one adult from every household or every adult resident.

CSE researchers have presented their proposal to the Congress party, as well as to the Samruddha Bharat foundation which is coordinating policy discussions among opposition parties for a possible common minimum programme.

“In principle, it is a good idea, but there is still a question of feasibility,” said Congress MP Rajeev Gowda who has reviewed the proposal and is involved in drafting his party’s poll manifesto, which will be released on April 2.

The Congress government of Madhya Pradesh has just started implementing its own urban jobs programme, and the Nationalist Congress Party has included a similar programme in its election manifesto.

“In the current fiscal scenario, it may not be possible for a government to implement both a basic income scheme and an urban jobs guarantee scheme,” admitted the paper’s lead author Amit Basole. “I’m not opposed to minimum income, but an employment guarantee scheme is preferable as it also creates public assets,” he added, pointing to the success of MGNREGA, the rural jobs scheme, as an example.