Tackle job crisis

The spate of violent protests in Bihar, UP, Haryana and other states against the Agnipath scheme leaves no room for doubt that the unemployment crisis has assumed alarming proportions in the country. The concessions being promptly made by the Centre, such as a one-time relaxation of the upper age limit for recruitment under the scheme, besides the promise of jobs to those recruits who won’t be retained by the armed forces after the four-year service period, have not helped in cooling the frayed tempers of youngsters desperate for gainful employment. Bihar is witnessing such violence for the second time this year, following the outrage in January over alleged irregularities in railway recruitment. The Union Government seems to have finally gauged the enormity of the problem caused by mass joblessness, with PM Modi recently issuing directions to make 10 lakh recruitments in the mission mode in all government departments and ministries over the next one-and-a-half years. The move is apparently aimed at filling major vacancies in the run-up to the 2024 General Election.

The alarm bells had started ringing over three years ago when the National Sample Survey Office’s job survey for 2017-18 showed that the unemployment rate had risen to a 45-year high of over 6 per cent; caught on a sticky wicket, the government resorted to evasion and took its time releasing the report. Another study, whose findings came out in April 2019, concluded that around 50 lakh people had lost work opportunities across the country in two years in the wake of the November 2016 demonetisation. The Covid-induced national lockdown of 2020 wiped out crores of jobs, particularly in the informal sector.

The widespread furore over lack of job security and employment avenues threatens to derail India’s economic recovery. Frequent disruptions in the form of road and rail blockades can dash the country’s hopes of becoming an attractive investment destination, besides creating social instability and worsening the law and order situation at a time when communal tensions are already running high. Jobs, not doles, across the board should be the way forward to arrest the dangerous slide.

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