RURAL UNEMPLOYMENT

• The data was released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) that calculates and publishes the country’s unemployment rate on a daily basis
• The unemployment rate is a ratio of the total estimated unemployed persons to the total estimated labour force for a month
• The rate of urban unemployment generally remains higher than rural. But the latter is considered more severe mainly because the causes of rural unemployment are more deep-rooted and hence, are more difficult to address, compared to urban unemployment
• The central Indian belt is characterised by undulating terrain, absence of perennial streams, people’s dependency on the forest for daily life and lack of irrigation infrastructure, which make it the worst-affected region in terms of rural employment generation. This area is also the heartland of the Adivasi people

• Agriculture Census 2015-16 by the department of agriculture & farmers welfare, Government of India showed that the average size of operational holdings decreased to 1.08 hectares in 2015-16 from 2.28 hectares in 1970-71
• The marginal (less than 1 hectare land) farmers constitute more than 68.5 per cent of the total cultivators and their average holding size is 0.38 ha.
• This situation is even worse in the central plateau area, The percentage of marginal farmers is more within Adivasi communities
• Around 77 per cent in Jharkhand and 76 per cent in Odisha are marginal farmers, a recent report on the Status of Adivasi Livelihoods (SAL 2021) in the two states by PRADAN, a national-level non-profit, showed.
• This minuscule amount of land can’t employ all the labour forces in the households beyond the Kharif (monsoon) season unless there are irrigation facilities for a second crop
•  Even in the Kharif season, the entire labour force of the household is not fully deployed. As a result, most marginal farmers look for wage employment as agricultural labour during the Kharif season as well.

1. Around 49 per cent of the net sown area in India is irrigated, the agriculture census report showed. For marginal farmers’ land, it is around 54 per cent
2. Around 19 per cent of Adivasi lands in Jharkhand and only 7 per cent of Adivasi lands in Odisha have all-season irrigation facilities, SAL 21 showed. 
3. The usual irrigation models such as large dam or river lift irrigation schemes are either not feasible or not beneficial to marginal farmers
4.  In-situ water harvesting, soil moisture conservation, small diversion structures, among others are some of the alternative solutions
5. There is, however, a need for developing context-specific irrigation prototypes for different areas within the central plateau

1. There has been a 48 per cent increase in the total production of food grains in the last 20 years, according to data shared by the Press Information Bureau, Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare 
2. Increased food production, no doubt, has created jobs in the agriculture sector in rural areas
3. However, that increase in production has not at all been sufficient to absorb the entire rural workforce
4.  Mechanisation and increase of rural population by 17 per cent during the same period have created more unemployment in the rural areas.
5. The lack of employment opportunities forces villagers to migrate to cities in search of menial jobs. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted to give employment opportunities to rural employment seekers.
6. But gradually, the focus of MGNREGA shifted to asset creation and as a result, it became more supply-driven rather than catering to the employment demand of job seekers in the rural area. 
7. The low wage rate of MGNREGA was another issue. In many states, the MGNREGA wage rate was lower than the state’s minimum wage rate