(A note prepared by AISA on Modi’s latest promise of job creation)

Narendra Modi who came in power in 2014 by promising crores jobs every year to the people has today miserably failed the youth of this country. By simple logic of his promise, by 2022 Modi government should have provided around 16 crore jobs. But just like his any other promises, this one has also proved to be a ‘Jumla’. Contrary to what has been promised in the name of ‘Acche Din’, unemployment rate had reached a record level even in Pre-Covid times. Now Modi Government has come up with a new jumla, that is, on 14th of June, it has announced that government will be giving 10 lakh jobs in next 18 months. Are 10 lakh jobs really a satisfactory number when we know that presently more than crores of people are unemployed in India?

Prevailing Unemployment Situation and BJP’s Response

• The period of Modi can appropriately be described as ‘The Era of Unemployed India’. For this “great” achievement, BJP government has really made some very “serious” efforts of which data speaks itself! The unemployment rate had hit a record level of 6.1% in 2017-18, before pandemic, that was worst in last four decades. By December 2021, the unemployment rate had reached 7.91% and figure of unemployed people by this time has reached 5.3 crore. This included 1.7 crore unemployed women. Among these 5.3 crore people, 3.5 crore were actively searching for jobs.
• All this while labour participation rate has constantly declined over the period. In 2017, labour force participation rate was 46% which came down to mere 40% in December 2021, being one of the lowest in world. (Labour force participation rate is defined as the section of working population in the age group of 16-64 in the economy currently employed or seeking employment.) That is, now in 2022, only less than half of the 90 crore working age population in India wants job. For the similar period of 2017-2021, 2.1 crore women have disappeared from the workforce.
• At least 30 lakh sanctioned posts under the central government, including those under various bodies and institutions run by the Centre are lying vacant. (Source: Newsclick) Most of these vacancies are in ministries and departments like Posts, Defence (Civil), Railways and Revenue. For example, In the Defence (Civil) department, there are nearly 2.5 lakh vacancies, 90,000 vacancies in the Posts department, in the Revenue department there are nearly 74,000 vacancies. In the Ministry of Home Affairs nearly 1.3 lakh posts are lying vacant.
• More than 2.65 lakh posts are lying vacant in Indian Railways. Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw admitted that there are vacancies in 2,65,547 posts, including 2,177 for gazetted posts, in various zones. Extent of unemployment situation that is prevailing in India can be understood by the fact that when recently Indian Railway had advertised for 35,000 posts, around 1.25 crore candidates applied for the exam. Similarly earlier in 2018, more than 2.5 crore people had applied for about 90,000 positions in railways. Many a times these candidates include post-graduates and PhD holders for the Grade D level exams.

In a country where 5.3 crore people are unemployed and 3.5 crore are actively looking for jobs 10 lakh is indeed a terribly insignificant figure to solve a crisis this big. A major “credit” for this ‘era of unemployed India’ shall be given to disastrous anti-people policies like Demonetisation and GST, which has caused structural damage from which country has still not been able to recover. Modi government’s inability to generate employment is rooted in its political stand that takes the side of corporate, allowing them to acquire public assets of this country at throw away prices. Historically it’s evident that push for privatization has never been in the favour of public but only in the interests of corporates.

The stance of Modi Government on the question of employment has revolved only around implementation of neo-liberal policies, four new labour codes being one example, that has only pushed the Indian labour market to become as “flexible” as possible to favour the corporates. These so – called “flexible” labour market policies have allowed contractualisation and outsourcing of jobs at record new levels. Wage repression and hire-and-fire like policies being implicit part of it that only acts as continuous threat for the livelihood of the workers amidst the constantly rising inflation in country.

This deepening crisis of unemployment continues to leave a grave impact on the youth of this country as more and more young people are committing suicides. Between 2018-2022, about 25000 young people have committed suicide. Of which 9,140 people committed suicide directly due to unemployment and other 16,091 committed suicide because of bankruptcy and indebtedness.

At the same time, Modi government’s push for privatization in Railways, seat cuts in UPSC/SSC etc have increased the insecurity among the aspirants who prepare day and night for a secure and dignified employment. Even the timely conduct of exams couldn’t been ensured by Modi Government in last many years for different exams, may it be SSC or Railways, where aspirants needed to wait for more than three years for a completion of a exam process and even then in certain cases it failed to complete an exam process properly, e.g. NTPC.

Why will the Modi Government not announce a job calendar that properly mentions all the exams that have to be conducted, date of exam and date of result? In case the concerned authority or body fails to adhere with it, they must be strictly punished. Anything less than this is a mockery of job-seeking youth.