22.21. The strategy of development envisaged in the Fourth Five Year Plan is in broad confirmity with what has been indicated above. The emphasis on labour intensive programmes through development of agriculture, rural infrastructure including communication and transport links, rural electrification, water management, rural industries, decentralisation and dispersal of industrial investments, rural and urban housing in the investment programmes is in line with this strategy. Large scale capital intensive investments are limited to projects where technological considerations and economy of scale do not permit adoption of labour intensive techniques. While creation of employment opportunities has been an important consideration, emphasis has equally been placed on productive employment on a sufficiently high level of efficiency.

22.22. The extent to which new employment opportunities will be created or there will be improvement in the earnings of those already employed in different sectors during the Fourth Plan period cannot be precisely quantified. The Fourth Plan lays considerable emphasis on labour-intensive schemes such as roads, minor irrigation, soil conservation, rural electrification, village and small scale industries, housing and urban development. The Planning Commission has also suggested to the Central Ministries and the State Governments and Union Territories to take effective steps to remove any restrictive policies which inhibit the faster growth of employment, to give employment orientation to the programmes to be taken up under the Fourth Plan, to lay emphasis on promotion of medium and small scale industries and on adoption of appropriate labour-intensive technology with due regard to efficiency and economy, and to ensure adequate and timely supplies of raw materials at reasonable prices to industries.

22.23. The increasing tempo of agricultural development in the Fourth Plan is expected to create new employment opportunities on a large scale in the rural

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areas and also provide fuller employment to these who are already engaged in agriculture. The Fourth Plan envisages a substantial increase in the agricultural production through the extension of area under cultivation, multiple and relay cropping, and high-yielding varieties, expansion of major and minor irrigation, including large- scale energisation of pumpsets through rural electrification, and integrated use of ground and surface water, fertilisers and manures and adoption of plant-protection measures. These measures will be supported by increasing the supply of machinery for farm operations, reorganisation of credit facilities and strengthening the rural infrastructure including better marketing and storage facilities. In the agricultural sector, considerable financial allocations are en- visaged in the Plan for the activities of the financial institutions such as, the cooperative Banks, the National Cooperative Development Corporation, the Agriculcultural Refinance Corporation, the Land Development Banks, Rural Electrification Corporation, Agricultural Credit Corporation, the Agro-Industries Corporations etc. Substantial credit is also expected to flow to the agricultural sector from the State Bank of India and the nationalised banks. In addition to the objective of maximising agricultural production, the Fourth Plan aims at enabling a large section of the rural population including the weaker sections such as small cultivators and landless labourers to participate in development and share its benefits. The special programmes formulated for sub-marginal farmers and for dry farming in which stress will be laid on improved farm technology envisage a significant expansion in employment opportunities by way of both fuller employment and new avenues of employment. The rural works programmes proposed to be undertaken in 40 chronically drought-prone districts in different States for which an outlay of Rs. 100 crores is contemplated is expected to provide unemployment relief in such areas. The increasing emphasis on programmes of soil conservation and waste land reclamation are also expected to contribute more employment opportunities to agricultural labour. The expansion of the dairy and milk supply schemes, and the development of inland and marine fisheries are expected to generate employment avenues for various categories of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled personnel.

22.24. Considerable emphasis is placed in the Fourth Plan on the development of major, medium and minor irrigation schemes and flood control, which are expected to provide increasing employment opportunities apart from under-employment relief in the rural areas. Small farmers are likely to benefit particularly from the programmes of minor irrgigation. Allied to the irrigation schemes are programmes of flood control, drainage and anti-water logging which involve substantial construction activities providing extensive employment opportunities to skilled and semi-skilled workers apart from civil engineers and other highly trained technical personnel.

22.25. A substantial volume of construction activities is inherent in the various schemes relating to generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, and rural electrification which would open employment avenues for various categories of personnel, ncluding semi-skilled and unskilled workers. The inter-linking of various regional power systems to form an All-India Grid would help more equitable distribution of power in the country and lead to the diversification of industrial growth and reduction of regional disparities in terms of employment opportunities. The rapid expansion in the rural electrification programme is expected to give an impetus to the development of small industries leading to generation of considerable rural employment.

22.26. Special schemes have been formulated by the Maharashtra and Gujarat Governments to provide increasing employment avenues in the rural areas. The Maharashtra Government's pilot Employment Guar- antee Scheme aims at providing unskilled manual work to all able bodied persons looking for employment. The scheme will form part of the State Plan programme of the Integrated Area Development Scheme for small farmers and agricultural labourers. The works proposed to be taken up under the scheme relate to contour bunding, irrigation, roads and village industries. The Gujarat Government's scheme 'Right to work' provides for unskilled jobs to the unemployed workers on multi- purpose, major, medium and minor irrigation works, capital projects, roads and soil conservation works. The experience gained in this field so far has been utilised in working out and launching special programmes for small farmers with viable and non voable units of cultivation, agricultural and landless labour and rural artisans particularly in dry areas as well as in backward districts, the allocations on which have been considerably stepped up. Attention has been renewed on problems of coordination which such schemes demand.

22.27. Non-farm employment is expected to grow at a fast rate during the Fourth Plan. The accelerated growth of organised mining and manufacturing, the encouragement of ancillary and small scale industries, continued assistance to village and, household industries, greater provision for rural electrification and for widespread development of repair and maintenance services, the rising level of construction activity, the increased provision for building the infrastructure of communications, transport and power and expansion of training facilities, will all contribute to larger opportunities for direct employment including self-employment. Organised industries and mining are likely to offer large job openings to engineers, technicians, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. The prog- rammes of khadi and village industries are suspected to generate a substantial volume of employment the bulk of which will be part-time and mostly benefiting women. The development programmes for small- scale industries is expected to provide employment opportunities on a full time basis and on a large scale. A special scheme has been formulated by the Ministry of Industrial Development for promoting self employment among engineer enterpreneurs, by imparting suitable training and by encouraging commercial banks to advance loans to them for starting small scale industries. Similarly, the State Bank of India and some of the nationalised banks have also schemes for giving financial assistance to technically trained persons to start busiless on their own. Items of machinery and equipment are also made available to the entrepreneurs on hirepurchase basis by the Small Industries, Corporations.

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22.28. Under the transport sector, most of the schemes particularly under railways and roads are highly labour intensive. The main schemes under railways which are expected to generate a large volume of employment relate to the conversion of metre gauge into broad gauge, doubling of tricks, expansion of suburban traffic, construction of bridges, laying of new lines, building of quarters for staff and provision of mass transit facilities in the metropolitan cities or Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Delhi. Under the roads development programmes, schemes relating to building of bridges on National Highways, reconstruction or weak bridges and culverts and widening of important sections of the National Highways, the development of village roads etc. are likely to provide employment to a large number of skilled and unskilled workers, The expansion programmes of the existing ports and the construction of satellite ports and various developments under inland water transport and shipping and improvement of international airports at Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Madras are likely to provide job opportunities for various categories of workers particularly the technically trained persons and semi-skilled and unskilled labourers. Under the communi- cations sector, large scale expansion is envisaged by way or extending telephone connections, development of trunk telephone services and establishment of 31,000 new post offices during the Fourth Plan period which has considerable potentialities for employment. The extensive development of programmes for promoting tourism in the country is expected to provide a large number of employment openings in hotels. transport and other tourist services.

22.29. The expansion programmes in the field of a general and technical education are expected to absorb a large number of trained teaching personnel, instructors, inspecting and other office staff. The setting up of new educational institutions and the extension of existing ones would increase the tempo of construction activity in school and college buildings, laboratories, hostels and staff quarters. Similarly the health and family planning programmes are expected to provide large employment avenues for medical and para medical personnel and other categories of administrative personnel, Under housing, various programmes are envisaged including a revolving fund of Rs. 200 crores, which is expected to create large employment in construction activities.

22.30. The trends in the employment growth in the organised sector during the past decade reveal that the rate of employment growth has been maximum in the tertiary sector of trade and commerce, transport, storage and communications and services. This sector is expected to grow at a faster rate in the coming years. There has been a notable increase in the participation of women in almost all activities during the past decade. This trend will continue and lead to an improvement in their economic and social status. The principal means of enlarging employment opportunities is to get the economy move as fast as possible with the maximum dispersal of productive activity throughout the country.

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