Q.Why are employment-generation programmes important in poverty alleviation in India?

Because poverty in India is bound up with unemployment and under-employment, creating jobs is one of the most direct ways to lift the poor out of their condition.

Employment-generation programmes are important in poverty alleviation because:

1. Poverty is closely related to employment. Unemployment, under-employment and the casual, intermittent nature of work compel the poor into indebtedness, which in turn reinforces poverty.
2. They raise incomes directly. Self-employment programmes (REGP, PMRY, SJSRY, SGSY/NRLM) and wage-employment programmes (Food for Work, MGNREGA) provide the poor with work and income, supplementing their consumption.
3. They create assets and skills. Self-employment schemes help the poor create income-earning assets, while public works create rural infrastructure.
4. They involve the poor in the growth process. Poverty can be eradicated effectively only when the poor themselves contribute to growth; employment programmes bring them into that process, raising incomes, skills, health and literacy.

For all these reasons, expanding self-employment and wage-employment programmes has been treated as a major way of addressing poverty in India.