Jobs, farm productivity top agenda as PM meets economists ahead of Budget

With the Union Budget just over a month away, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met a select group of economists at NITI Aayog to brainstorm over the theme, “maintaining India’s growth momentum at a time of global uncertainty”.

During the interaction — part of the Budget preparation exercise of the government — the PM emphasised that a developed nation could be achieved through a fundamental change in mindset which was focussed towards making India a developed country by 2047.

The participants shared their views on several significant issues, including navigating challenges posed by global economic uncertainties and geopolitical tensions, strategies to enhance employment particularly among the youth and creating sustainable job opportunities across sectors.

Ways to align education and training programmes with the evolving needs of the job market, enhancing agricultural productivity and creating sustainable rural employment opportunities, attracting private investment and mobilising public funds for infrastructure projects to boost economic growth and create jobs, were also discussed during the meeting between the economists and the PM, official sources said.

Some of the economists who were present in the meeting were Dharmakirti Joshi, Surjit Bhalla, Ashok Gulati, Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Janmejaya Sinha and Amita Batra, among others.