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prime concern The unemployment rate is down, but 60 per cent of the youth suffer from skill deficit, which makes them unfit for entry-level jobs. Also, more jobs need to be created to keep up with the rise in workforce By Sanjeev Sharma
India's much touted demographic dividend - a country with a younger working population as compared to the ageing societies of the developed markets — may easily turn into a demographic disaster if sufficient employment opportunities are not created. Demographic disaster
Cautioning on the impending fallout, FICCI president RV Kanoria says: "If we fail to create more jobs, we will face a situation what Aung San Suu Kyi recently described (at the World Economic Forum meeting on East Asia) in the context of Myanmar — the problem of youth employment is like a time bomb. Our demographic dividend may become a demographic disaster." As per the Indian Staffing Federation (ISF), an apex body of the flexi staffing industry in India, the labour force of India (in the age group of 15-59 years) as of 2011 is estimated at 420 million while the unemployed population is about 14 million. Rituparna Chakraborty, vice-president of the federation, says most of the sectors require people for entry-level jobs, and are faced with huge talent shortage. Skill deficit is the biggest culprit in job creation, which in turn leads to unemployment.
No skill centres
The number of ITIs has almost doubled in the last five years. The Ministry of Labour and Employment has formulated a scheme, "Kaushal Vikas Yojana", to set up 1,500 new ITIs and 5,000 skill development centres (SDCs) in un-serviced blocks under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode. The approval process for the scheme is on.
Unemployability factors
The sectors that are likely to see more jobs being created, says Chakraborty, would be retail (more so after FDI), FMCG, healthcare and pharma. On the linkage of employment with the economy, Chakraborty says that the economy is witnessing a slowdown and job creation has taken a hit. It will take some time for the reforms to take full effect and the economy to witness an upturn; till such time the slowdown in job creation is expected to continue. She says the country is faced with a bigger problem, “unemployability”. To counter unemployment, we need to work on elevating unemployability. According to recent studies, around 60 per cent of the youth in India suffer from some sort of skill deprivation, which stops them from being employed at the entry level. The lack of proper vocational training facilities accentuates this problem. The key skills, apart from the relevant industry skills, will be communication, digital literacy and soft skills. Estimates of employment and unemployment are obtained through quinquennial labour force surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Office. The last such survey was conducted during 2009-10. As per the recent surveys, the total estimated number of unemployed persons has declined from 10.84 million in 2004-05 to 9.50 million in 2009-10 and the unemployment rate has come down from 2.3 per cent (2004-2005) to 2 per cent (2009-10).
Government schemes
For employment generation, the government has launched programmes such as Swarana Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY), Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), besides several entrepreneurial development programmes run by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. As per the results of the last survey, the estimated urban unemployment was 4.36 million as compared to rural unemployment of 5.14 million during 2009-10. The unemployment rate among women was 4.3 per cent as against 3.3 per cent for men for the corresponding years. Government initiatives like the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP), which seeks to create 100 million jobs in the next few years, and FDI in retail are being aimed at employment generation. The 11th Five Year Plan aimed at creating 58 million additional job opportunities for the skilled and unskilled labour force at an average rate of growth of 2.73 per cent per annum from projected employment of about 402 million at the beginning of the 11th Plan to about 460 million at the end of the Plan. During 2004-05 and 2009-10, about 20 million additional job opportunities were created at an average rate of growth of around 1 per cent per year during 2004-05 to 2009-10 while the GDP grew at 8.6 per cent during the period. The 12th Plan highlights that there is a potential for an accelerated pace of creation of more durable rural non-farm jobs and livelihood opportunities. Such job opportunities could come from faster expansion in agro-processing, supply chains and the increased demand for technical personnel for inputs into various aspects of farming that is undergoing modernisation and also the maintenance of equipment and other elements of rural infrastructure. The services sector, too, has to continue to be a place for the creation of opportunities, in both rural and urban areas. Employment increased from 459.10 million in 2004-05 to 465.48 million in 2009-10, creating an additional employment of 6.4 million. During the same period, the labour force increased from 469.94 million to 474.98 million, adding 5.04 million to the labour force. As per information available with the Directorate-General of Employment and Training, 25.89 million job-seekers, including the educated in the age group of 15-29, all of whom may not necessarily be unemployed, registered with employment exchanges in the country at the end of 2009.
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last word
Into theatre
It was little wonder then that 59-year-old Law Minister Salman Khurshid's recent verbal spat with mediapersons shocked those who know him. The display of anger was out of character, exclaimed his friends, who were equally taken aback at the corruption charges levelled against him, which provoked the outburst. The Khurshid they are familiar with is quick-witted, an engaging storyteller and a great mimic (his imitation of Arun Shourie is well known). He has been involved in writing and acting in plays since his student days and is the author of the play, Sons of Babur, which has been staged with Tom Alter in the lead role. He met his wife Louise when they were cast as the lead pair in the play Pygmalion in college. The carefree days are a distant past as he finds himself in the thick of a swirling controversy following reports about alleged misappropriation of funds by the Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust being run by his family for the physically challenged. Even before this storm could die down, Khurshid was in the midst of another raging row after television channels showed footage of his speech at a public meeting in his constituency Farrukhabad, which was interpreted as a threat to activist-politician Arvind Kejriwal. "I have been made the Law Minister and asked to work with the pen. I will work with the pen, but also with blood," he was heard declaring before his supporters. While the audience in Farrukhabad may have lapped up this show of aggression, the statement met with disapproval from the Congress and his opponents. Those who know how he uses his knowledge of literature and law in his speeches were not surprised. His friends said the statement was inspired by a book on the US Constitution, "In Blood and Ink", by Maury Maverick, who believes there is more than ink and paper to the Constitution as blood was also spilled in its making. This is not the first time Khurshid has landed in trouble because of his choice of words, which are not understood by a largely lay audience. He recently came under fire when he remarked that Rahul Gandhi was only playing a "cameo role" and that the Congress is directionless. He tied himself in knots explaining "cameo" was not a disparaging word. Foot in mouth
However, his detractors are not ready to overlook what they see as transgressions. They say Khurshid has a penchant for courting controversy. He embarrassed the Congress when he declared in Azamgarh during the UP poll campaign earlier this year that party president Sonia Gandhi shed tears after seeing photos of the Batla House encounter. He also took on the Election Commission over his remarks on a sub-quota for backward minorities. But these controversies pale in comparison to the allegations of corruption he is battling. He has been jolted out of complacency as he had been riding high for the past year. Although he took over the law ministry last year at a time when the UPA was battling court cases, Khurshid acquitted himself well in this new job. But it was the Anna Hazare crisis that put him on political centrestage. While his colleagues Kapil Sibal and P Chidambaram got embroiled in arguments with Team Anna, Khurshid's affable nature helped the government deal with the confrontation with civil society activists on the Lokpal Bill issue. He subsequently emerged as the government's spokesperson as he was called upon to defend the UPA on any and every subject. OSD to Indira
Although born with a silver spoon, having been handed over a political legacy on a platter, his life has been full of challenges. It began when he forayed into the political arena in 1981 with his appointment as OSD in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's office after a teaching stint in Trinity College, Oxford University. Khurshid struggled to establish himself as a leader from UP. His proximity to Rajiv landed him a ticket for the 1989 Lok Sabha polls from Farrukhabad. But he failed to make the cut, which was not surprising as it coincided with the waning popularity of the Congress. He bounced back in 1991 and went on to serve as a Minister of State for External Affairs in the Narasimha Rao government. Photo finish
This exposure brought him brief glory. Nobody can forget the famous photograph of a beaming Khurshid in a bear hug with BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee, head of the Indian delegation to the UN, after they tasted diplomatic success in the international body. But the photo was brandished by his detractors in the 1996 polls as proof of his "cosy" relationship with the BJP. His ambivalent stand in the Shahbano case and the demolition of the Babri Masjid also contributed to his defeat, making him suspect in the eyes of the Muslim community that never regarded him as one of them. A group of UP Congress leaders had called on Sonia Gandhi to protest his appointment as PCC chief. “Hamne manga tha Musalman, par milgaya Salman," they told her. Balancing act
Khurshid has faced a constant dilemma. His liberal upbringing repels against pandering to the conservative elements, but realpolitik pushes him in that direction, which was evident when he supported the ban on Salman Ruhshdie's "Satanic Verses". "The problem with him is that he looks for a Muslim-dominated constituency to contest, but after winning, he proclaims himself to be secular," remarked a Congress leader, adding the main grouse of the Muslims is that Khurshid failed to do anything for it despite heading the ministry of minority affairs. His 1996 defeat was followed by a long wait outside. Even his two stints as the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress unit failed to get him very far. His detractors say he promoted factionalism, but his supporters believe the constraints within which he had to work made it difficult to build the organisation while his easygoing demeanour is not cut out to handle the machinations of wily Congress politicians. Losing a child
He was devastated when his teenaged daughter died of a kidney ailment some years ago. But he staged a comeback. He and his one-time friend Jairam Ramesh put together the "aam admi" campaign in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, which saw the Congress return to power. Although he had to sit out during the UPA-I dispensation, his victory in the 2009 elections made him a contender for a ministerial position.
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As per the Labour Ministry statistics, there are no skill development training centres in the country. There are 9,960 government and private Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) operating in the country under the Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS). There are also 7,125 vocational training providers (VTPs) who implement the modular employable skills programme under the Skill Development Initiative (SDI) scheme.
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