36 
CHAPTER III. 
unemployment insurance, but we cannot regard any national system 
of insurance with which we are familiar as feasible at present in India. 
With the existing turnover and in the absence of an industrial population 
which is both permanent and regular, the risk is not a calculable one. 
Therefore, even if the workers were able and willing to contribute, there 
is no basis on which a scheme could be built. This does not, however, 
relieve the State of the responsibility of taking such measures to deal 
with unemployment, when it arises, as are likely to be effective. This 
responsibility has long been recognised in India ; but the system of un- 
employment relief was devised before organised industry had developed 
and has been evolved with reference solely to the rural population. It 
has been of great value to them at times and might prove capable of 
adaptation to the towns. The principles and methods of the system seem 
to us to be more likely to be successful in dealing with urban unemploy- 
ment under present conditions than those of any Western scheme of 
insurance. The essence of the system, as we understand it, is the pre- 
paration beforehand of schemes of work for the workless, and the putting 
of these into operation when the flow of labour to test works has demon- 
strated the need of relief. The wage paid is a bare subsistence rate, 
and it is coupled with subsidiary measures of relief for those who are 
not able-bodied and for dependents. The works selected for the purpose 
are capable of being carried out by unskilled labour and are usually 
designed to be of lasting benefit to the community. There should 
certainly be no difficulty in providing such work in urban areas. The 
industrial areas in particular offer great scope for improvements in the 
way of slum clearance and the construction of roads and drainage. In 
some areas, work of this kind, if undertaken on the lines followed by 
Improvement Trusts, should involve less financial loss than those avail- 
able in rural areas and might even prove remunerative., The cost of test 
works would be small and, at times like the present, these would show 
whether there was acute need of more extensive measures. Care would 
have to be taken to avoid attracting labour from the country to the 
towns, but we believe that this danger could be obviated. We recom- 
mend that along these lines Government should examine the possibi- 
lities of making preparations to deal with unemployment when it arises, 
and of taking action where it is now required. We would not preclude 
the examination of additional methods of ensuring against unemploy- 
ment. The substantial success which has been achieved, on a large 
scale, in assisting the agriculturalist to tide over periods of stress, 
gives reason to hope that the much smaller problem of assisting the un- 
employed industrial worker should not prove incapable of solution.