Since the Election Commission of India finalized the poll dates for upcoming general elections in India, the election carnival formally begins for this season! As elections are closer now, people are all geared up to choose their leader. Hence, leaders in waiting from different parties will now try to count our problems and make tall promises to the public. Politicians will now have ample amount of time for the general public. For a moment I think elections should be held every month, then at least people in power will listen to the problems of public for votes just like they do during election!
I don’t know how far are the aspiring candidates and the PM in waiting of the 17th Lok Sabha are prepared to face the real issues faced by India citizens, but addressing the deepening job crisis should be the priority for the upcoming government.
As Business Standard reported, an official survey that has been withheld by the government shows India’s unemployment rate rose to a 45-year high during 2017-2018. The assessment by the National Sample Survey Office conducted between July 2017-June 2018, showed the unemployment rate stood at 6.1%, the highest since 1972-73, the newspaper reported. The report said that joblessness stood at 7.8% in urban areas compared with 5.3 parts in the countryside. The last report published by the statistics ministry had shown that the unemployment rate rose to 5.0 percent in 2015/16 from 4.9% in the previous year and 4.0% in 2012/13. The unemployment among males stood at 4.3% and 8.7% among women in 2015-16, the government data showed.
In my earlier article, I have talked about how Indian youth needs better job opportunities and not reservation… Meanwhile, unemployment is the biggest challenge for the nation and added to that the data put out by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), about 1.5 million jobs were lost during January-April 2017, and 11 million people were added to the pool of unemployed Indians in 2018.
CMIE data shows that unemployment rate rose to 7.2% in Feb 2019, the highest since Sept 2016, up from 5.9% in Feb 2018. The number of employed persons in India was estimated at 400 million in February compared with 406 million a year ago. Government claiming that the job crisis is just a data crisis will not help the current unemployment situation. There is a significant decline occurring on a monthly basis, and government’s negligence will only aggravate the current crisis.
Unemployment rate in India increased to 6.10% in 2018 from 3.52% in 2017. Unemployment rate in India averaged at 4.12% from 1983 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 8.30% in 1983 and a record low of 3.41% in 2014.
Therefore, unemployment is the biggest problem in India right now. This is where the government needs to focus and make efforts to improve the situation. Our politicians need to find feasible solutions to contain this crisis. Even our PM in waiting needs to address unemployment as a core issue looming large over the country.
Every problem has a solution. While on one hand the government should focus on stronger policies to eradicate this social threat, on the other the youth should come up with innovative ways to contribute to the national income. Many a times the root cause of arrogance is unawareness; the government must know that due to unemployment we are wasting our country’s human resource. So, there is a need to think about how to create employment opportunities in rural and urban areas of the country.
To conclude, unemployment is the consequence of failure of proper policy making by the government. No doubt there are also some other reasons for the job crisis. But lack of policy formulating is the core one. Therefore, govt needs to bring new policies that can help resolve the problem. Government is responsible for building and maintaining the systems of the nation. There are so many things that a government can do to reduce unemployment.
Therefore, this election season, I wish that unemployment is taken up as a key issue along with tackling the major challenges obstructing India’s growth and development. Also I appeal that election campaigns should be based on real issues, not on the non-issues. I sincerely hope that the job crisis will be reduced or tackled by the 17th Prime Minister of India.