In my several earlier posts, I had written on the importance to create jobs. I remember two – ‘Blue-collared, the new vote bank posted on 23 Dec 2016 and the ‘Ticking time bomb’ posted on 3 Jun 2015.
India is speedily matching China’s population figures of 1.35 billion and is expected to exceed China to reach a population of 1.5 billion by 2050. We boast of the average young age of our people as compared to China, where a one-child policy was forced to curb the population explosion. The result is in the following decades they had older people, necessitating a rethink on the Chinese government on their population control policy. Our weak and selective attempts to curb new births met with loud protests and had to be aborted. Neither the government penalises people with many kids, nor does it incentivise parents with one or two kids.
Be that as it may, my post was not on the population, but on job creation, which too has been a reason for the loss in the recent elections for the BJP party, though the farmers’ woes also played a decisive part in the rout.
Government is the biggest employer and has been going painfully slow on creating jobs. MNREGA used to offer a minimum of 100 days employment in a year, but it has failed to generate any capital assets or address environmental causes, like planting saplings etc.
There is a National Skill Development Program, which I think is a headless chicken. Officials connected with it are in a tearing hurry to prove to PMO that budget sums are being routinely disbursed and skill training have been imparted to ‘x’ million youth in the country. The program is faulty if it does not enable the trained youth to either pursue any vocation on their own or absorbed in any industry. The post-training part is no one’s bother and is not covered under any scheme.
Every pavement, available space all over the country have been taken over by the youth, who sell egg rolls or pakoras, run tea shops and hawk whatever they can lay their hands on. A few connected ones, wedge into the reality sector, supplying sand and stone chips or end up as extortionists. There could be 100 Mn or more posted as security guards, now a necessity in every apartment block and office. Besides struggling to stay alive, there is hardly any contribution of these people to the country, sadly not because of their fault.
In the largest employment sector, farming, youth are discarding to rush to the cities to get whatever jobs, due to droughts and weak prices for their produce. No one seems to complain, as these farmlands end up for reality projects at throwaway prices. Many youth chase paper degrees, to ever-falling standards of education, dished out by a corrupt system and often queue up for any government job. Of course, political parties absorb all who come in and dole out, I hear, about Rs.200 a day, plus food and even alcohol on ‘eventful’ days and no one seems to complain.
How can we ever gloat as the 5th largest economy with $ 2.6 trillion, overtaking UK and France with nearly $2.4 Trillion each, while our population is around 1300 million and theirs 66 and 67.1 million respectively? That should explain our long-term woes lying ahead.
If someone is wondering what we do here in West Bengal, a few youth can start a (para) club and get funds officially from the government and can host Pujas and soirees to live happily throughout their lives!
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
