Issue of Employment in Uttarakhand – At glance :

The pattern of growth in employment has been disappointing in Uttarakhand as it appears to be largely distress-driven, particularly in the hill districts of the state. Agriculture still remains a last resort by absorbing the major share of additions in the workforce. Though the structure of employment has been shifting in favour of non-agricultural sector over the years, this has been mainly in the case of male workforce. There has been hardly any shift in the structure of female employment in the state, particularly in its rural areas. They continue to remain the back bone of agriculture in the state, particularly in the hill region. The double-digit growth in GSDP in the state since its inception could hardly reach to agriculture and more so to rural areas in the hill districts.

 In fact per worker real GSDP in agriculture sector—a major employer of the workforce--declined in absolute terms during the period 1999-2000 to 2004-05. Similar pattern is also observed in the case of ‘trade, hotel and restaurants’ sector. Other sectors witnessed a faster growth in GSDP per worker. In brief, the income inequalities between agriculture and non-agricultural sector have further widened over the years. This only shows a distress situation prevailing in the rural areas of the state. This is also reflected in higher incidence of poverty in the state.

The state government has initiated a number of policy measures since its formation to promote the overall development of Uttarakhand including generation of productive employment opportunities. Since the state is nearly seven years old and various policies initiated have yet to be implemented on a full scale, it is too early to comment on the impact of such policies on employment generation. However, first hand field experience in rural areas and discussions with various line departments of the state government indicate that there is a big gap between the productive employment needs of rural households and the efforts that are being made by the government towards this end. The bias in credit flow for priority sectors is yet another example where the banking sector prefers to finance only developed districts and is hesitant to take risks in the hilly districts. In this process, the gap in development is bound to increase. The New Industrial Policy of the state, therefore, should ensure balanced industrial growth by attracting more capital to backward districts, particularly in the hill areas. There are several constraints towards generating remunerative employment opportunities within and outside the farm sector. These need to be addressed by policy planners. The biggest challenge is to improve the productivity of agriculture in hill region of the state through its diversification from the existing subsistence cereal based production to market oriented enterprise. The efforts made so far in this direction need to be geared up on a larger scale along with developing strong market linkages. Yet another major challenge is to educate and train people of the state, particularly females in the hill districts of Uttarakhand to switch over to the commercial mode of farming.

Since Uttarakhand is endowed with relatively a higher human capital stock, it will be easier to train them in market oriented skills on a larger scale. This will improve their employability both within and outside the state. More importantly, there is a need to develop entrepreneurship among the youth in Uttarakhand, which they generally lack. The basic tendency is to search for wage employment, even at abysmally low wages. This needs to be corrected through developing area-based entrepreneurship development training programmes. In sum, the process of higher growth in Uttarakhand must percolate to its hill areas which have yet to witness a remarkable improvement in employment and income opportunities for their population. The development dreams of people of Uttarakhand as they visualized at the time of demand for new state, particularly those residing in hill districts must be addressed on a priority basis in the planning of the state.