Huge tax exemptions for the middle class, a mega pension plan for the unorganized sector and an assured income scheme for farmers are some of the key highlights of the interim budget presented by interim Finance Minister Piyush Goyal in Parliament.
An election budget clearly presented with the aim of winning voters, the finance minister, however, failed to directly take on one of the hottest button issues affecting the country in his speech – jobs, or their lack thereof.
What’s more, new schemes or programmes aimed at youth also found little mention in the speech, with the focus largely on emphasizing what has been worked upon, and an increase in allocation for rural unemployment under MNREGA.
Where Are The Jobs?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised that he would create one crore jobs if he was voted to power. But, job creation has remained a tough nut to crack for the government with the budget speech, that was high on pro-poor, pro-farmer and middle-class incentives, saying little about this aspect.
In his budget speech, the finance minister spoke about jobs nine times in a circumlocuting manner, while managing to completely evade the issue of reportedly alarming rise of unemployment in the country.
“High growth and formalisation of the economy has led to the expansion of employment opportunities,” the finance minister claimed, citing an increase in EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation) membership, which he said has increased by nearly 2 crore (20 million) in two years.
That demonetisation and the consequent shoddy implementation of GST destroyed millions of jobs was made clear after a recent Business Standard report revealed that unemployment hit a 45-year high of 6.1% in 2017-’18, with the unemployment rate among rural men in the 15-29 age group jumping over three times to 17.4% in 2017-’18 from 5% in 2011-’12.
The report quoted the same survey that the Modi government had been accused of burying, when two members of the National Statistical Commission resigned after the government refused to release the data.
Instead of addressing the issue head-on or presenting concrete solutions for boosting job growth, the finance minister chose to spoke about the issue in vagaries like this:
“The concept of employment is changing all over the world, now the employment generation is not confined merely to government services or factories.”
“With job seekers becoming job creators, India has become the world’s second largest start-up hub.”
“Our youth will lead us in this endeavour with innumerable start-ups creating digital India and millions of jobs in this eco-system.”
150 million people voted for the first time in 2014. More than a hundred million new ones are going to be eligible to cast their votes this election. More than a million are joining the job market every year. The least the government can do is to directly talk about the crisis, instead of trying to evade conversation around it, or brushing it under the carpet.