Title: Exploring Social Security for Urban Poor: Study of the Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme in Thiruvanantapuram, Kerala
Published on: October 16, 2022
Author: Niveditha GD
Abstract:
The focus of this paper is to explore how urban employment guarantee can be used as a means to provide social security for the urban poor, particularly women and migrant workers. To understand how such a model can be designed and implemented, the paper begins by evaluating some existing proposals for an urban employment guarantee model and the various concerns that come with it. An evaluation of Kerala’s Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme (AUEGS) occupies the rest of the paper in order to fully understand how a similar rights-based urban employment guarantee programme can be conceptualised and operationalized in other states. Through extensive fieldwork in the municipalities of Varkala and Nedumangad (Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala) conducted in March 2022, this study critically examines the functioning of AUEGS, its design and implementation challenges based on experiences of workers, interactions with municipal and state level actors and experts. Further, the paper moves on to provide recommendations for better implementation of AUEGS by strengthening the social accountability provisions of the scheme through systematic integration with Kudumbashree (women-based community organisation), and refocusing the scope of the scheme to expand the nature and variety of works offered under the scheme so as to target the heterogeneous needs of the urban working population. It concludes by recommending the need for such a scheme at the national level so as to increase the scope of the State to strengthen social security for the urban poor.