pro-poor, pro-nature & pro-women.
| Gender Sensitivity of the Employment Guarantee Act |
| The Employment Guarantee Bill is basically a social security being offered to the poor in rural areas, which is expected to guarantee wage employment by providing not less than one hundred days of wage employment to one adult in every household, where adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The act and the employment guarantee schemes are expected to be operational in selected rural areas. |
| The bill was tabled in the parliament on December 21, is different from the draft of the bill prepared by the National Advisory Council in many respects. Several organizations and experts had alleged that the Act has brought in many ambiguities and also made it more rigid. |
| As per the 2001 census in 105 of the 150 districts selected for food work programme, there are more women as agricultural labour in comparision with men. Their percentage varied from 52 percent to 75 percent or more in these districts. Hence the Act has to be gender sensitive. There are a number of issues connected with women labour such as suitability of work for women, the definition of productive work, support service to women, implication of the minimum wage and so on. It is essential that the gender implications of the Employment Guarantee Act be examined. |
| A workshop was jointly organised by Uttara Devi Centre for Gender and Development and Ford Foundation Chair for Women and Food Security at MSSRF on 28 january 2005.The participants were AIDWA and NFIW, WFP economist, activists and many others connected with women development. |
| Recommendations for the Amendment of the Employment Guarantee Act |
| Know more about EGA at http://www.righttofoodindia.org |