When there is food shortage in the country, there are no two opinions. Buy, import, grow, food must be made available to all. There is no point in saying "well, we have to learn to live with the famine". Atleast NOW no govt can afford to say that and still hope to be in power. When food is available, and the man has no money that FOOD is meaningless. Abolition of famine means abolition of unemployment. So far in no country outside USSR, there is full employment. Govts offer sympathies and plead helplessness. The bureaucrat can plead helplessness as he is under the political leadership. The leadership has no right to plead helplessness. The International Commission for Peace and Food gave a call in 1994 for guaranteed employment.
A leadership qualifies to govern the nation only when it guarantees employment, Planning Commission's Vision 2020 calls for guaranteed employment. It is great that it did so. There are more than dozen reports submitted to the Govt about additional avenues for employment. In fact, it has been the experience of every development pocket whether it is in Punjab or Coimbatore or in our tiny isolated rural project in Ramapuram, labour is in short supply the moment development of any type is introduced. Even in 1929-32 crises when there was unemployment all over the world, historians now say USA was in a boom, just prior to it. The crisis was generated by the manipulation in the money market. Bharathi shouted from the house top that no single man ought to go without food.
I would go further, not merely ask for reducing unemployment or even guaranteeing employment as a govt programme. It has to be a legal guarantee for every adult. It is the fundamental duty of every civilised govt to grant the fundamental right to employment amending the constitution for that purpose. It is not charity, a help, or a service. It is Man's birthright to have an employment. The right is his own because he is an individual. No one need to grant it to him as an extension of courtesy. The society is wider and greater than the govt. The society should ensure it to everyone by virtue of his being a citizen. To recognise the right to employment is to recognise the spiritual individual.