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NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 5: President APJ Abdul Kalam has suggested that the Prime Minister’s Office look into broadening the scope of work allowed under the rural job guarantee scheme to include skilled jobs as well.

The NREG involves only manual work, but Kalam would like the inclusion of jobs such as plumbing and telecom service operations under the scheme.

The PMO is understood to have replied that the suggestions may not fit into the current form of the NREG but has asked the Rural Development ministry to explore options.

Kalam’s letter follows suggestions he received from a National Innovation Foundation professor in November. The proposal from Prof Anil Gupta argued that the unskilled work done under NREG is limited to creating physical assets for communities, and does not make use of the thinking power of rural people.

Gupta says that 30 to 40 days of mental work by people under NREG could be used for gathering traditional knowledge about the use of local resources — natural, cultural and material. The knowledge base created by this, says Gupta, could later form the best practices in resource utilisation and be marketed, generating more non-farm employment in rural areas in the future.

Gupta, who also teaches at IIM Ahmedabad, told The Indian Express, that he did send such a proposal but preferred not to talk further. But in the latest issue of Honey Bee, a NIF magazine, Gupta argues for a knowledge-intensive approach in all the job guarantee schemes to empower local communities.

Should the PMO consider such as expansion, it will amount to changing the entire NREG Act.