Context :
Government suspends key nationwide
surveys amid raging Covid-19 2nd wave
Extract :
The Union authorities
has suspended work on 4 key surveys on
# Migrants # Home employees # jobs created by the Transport sector and
# Professionals ,
With lockdowns and curfews being imposed throughout the nation,
surveyors .. will discover it tough to go to households, places
of work and worksites,…and the surveys will restart as soon as the state of affairs
improves.
The delay could.. have an opposed influence on the proposed
nationwide employment coverage that the federal government was mulling.
“We are speaking to our
professional committee on how one can incorporate the
brand new realities in these surveys.. Second, nobody will entertain
surveyors at their houses throughout a second wave,” mentioned Negi, who can also be the
chief labour commissioner (central).
According to the Union labour ministry,
# The Migrants’ survey would be the first such examine of “ the socio-
economic and dealing circumstances of
# The survey of Home employees expects to seize the socio-economic
situation, the job desire and influence of
standing
# The Transport sector survey was imagined to seize the roles created by
the trade, together with by taxi
# The one on Professionals was imagined to seize the employment era and
potential of tens of hundreds of
with advocates, docs and chartered accountants.
On March 31, labour minister Santosh Gangwar mentioned the
surveys will “generate extremely helpful knowledge for efficient
policymaking within the area of labour and employment”.
The examine of the labour market, together with gig employees,
will assist the federal government formulate a complete employment
coverage for each formal and casual segments and design social
safety and welfare measures.
Besides, there was a rising demand for a nationwide
coverage on employment to formalize the big casual sector, implement social
safety for unorganised employees, and formulate welfare
schemes for low-income households.
The surveys are essential as they might present a holistic image
of the employment market and the socioeconomic situation of migrants and
different casual employees..
The first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic pushed an estimated 230
million Indians to poverty, in response to a survey by Azim Premji University.
===================================================
MY
TAKE :
Ø To conduct these surveys
( and many other not listed above ), we will need to engage lakhs of SURVEYORS ,
spread over a period of months , involving millions of man-hours for each
exercise
Ø These Surveyors
would need to be given some ( obsolete ? ) DATABASE of households across entire
country ( may be each Ministry has its own “ Database of Householders “ ? )
Ø May be, each
surveyor manages to visit 4 / 5 householders per day
Ø They will ( most
likely ) carry with them, lengthy printed forms, each having ( may be ) 30
data-fields
Ø By reading out each
question to the householder, they will enter the submitted data in the form (
many times, their own “ liberal interpretation “ of what was said by the
householder ). Without doubt, these surveyors would need to be “
multi-linguists “ , especially in Metros where the citizen population is cosmopolitan,
with 5 / 6 different major Indian languages . Accurate translation will be a
big problem
Ø Then, they will need “ INPUT “ all the collected data into Online Databases ( on as many different govt
portals, as there are no of different surveys , conducted by different Ministries
)
Ø Under the universal
idiom of “ left hand does not know what the right hand is doing “ , there is
bound to be a dozen data-fields which are IDENTICAL across the SURVEY FORMS of
different Ministries ! – may be in different order !
Ø I am sure, data
inputted by each Surveyor ( for each exercise ) for each household, will be “
Counter-checked “ for accuracy, by ANOTHER DATA ENTRY OPERATOR
Ø By the time a given
survey-exercise gets over and the “ inputted data “ properly analyzed and
tabulated, it will take 12 / 18 months. At the whim of the Ministry concerned,
that ANALYSIS may or may not get published on the Ministry’s website !
IN SUMMARY :
Ø These are time and
money consuming, wasteful exercises, of little relevance to real-time policy
initiatives
Ø If possible, ALL
such surveys must get consolidated into ONE SINGLE UNIVERSAL and ONGOING
process , with little or just one-time “ human intervention “
Ø It should be
VOLUNTARY but offering such powerful INCENTIVES that, every citizen joins and
updates-edits, his / her data, every time there is a change
Ø Such a TECHNOLOGY –
DRIVEN process should be spread-over a period of 3 years for all establishments
in the country
WHAT COULD BE THE OUTLINE / FRAME-WORK OF
SUCH A PROCESS
?
Ø From BAD to MAD …………………………[ 01 June 2016 ]
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