Budget 2019 India: A few days after announcement of PM Narendra Modi-led NDA’s thumping victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha Election, data on economic growth and job came as a dampener.

The Euphoria had barely settled when this ‘party pooper’ information from Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI) hit which showed unemployment rate at 45-years high!

There were indications earlier of this downward trend when data of a survey for 2017-18 was released by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) and it showed an unprecedented increase in unemployment rate to over 6 per cent. This report was earlier held by the govt as it called the findings as draft report only. Rising unemployment rate coupled with slowing growth rate is any government’s worst fear. In the upcoming Union Budget 2019, the Modi 2.0 govt needs to address the situation on an urgent basis. The challenges posed by this growth rate slowdown and unemployment rate hike is enormous. Talking about the country’s economic situation and industry’s expectations from the upcoming Union Budget 2019, Sandip Somany, FICCI President said, “The NDA government got a bigger mandate in the General elections. The industry now expects bold reform measures to be unleashed in the Union Budget 2019 so that they can overcome these existing challenges, including high unemployment rate. The Union Budget should take measures to push country’s economy on a higher growth trajectory.”

Elaborating on what needs to be done in terms of job-creations in Union Budget 2019, Somany said, “Comprehensive strategy is needed for addressing the challenges posed by growing unemployment. The strategy must include, not just creation of jobs, but also focus on quality of jobs as well, this is a key challenge.”

“India needs to create about 6 to 7 million jobs per year. Every year in the country, almost 10-12 million people start some sort of employment and join the workforce. The labour force participation rate in India is about 0.5 to 0.55. Taking the backlog of the unemployed in account, we require as many as 8 million jobs per Year. In the Union Budget 2019, there should also be a provision for creating comprehensive system to capture the jobs data so that we can estimate industry-wise jobs creation,” he added.

FICCI president Somany suggested that in Union Budget 2019, the govt should focus on new age businesses and offer support to MSME sector. “There are these new age business like applications such as Uber, Ola, Zomato and Swiggy, and online aggregator services. There is also the start-up domain, all of these can create more and more jobs. Also, there is need for more labour flexibility,” he added.

“In Union Budget 2019, the govt should create a strong support system for entrepreneurial ventures and also an ecosystem for skilling and re-skilling, a flexible framework for hiring and more investment. All this will have positive impact on job creation. If need be, create a separate ministry for employment which can coordinate these efforts efficiently,” Somany said.

Published On : 15-06-2019

Source : Economic Times