NITI Aayog creating jobless India, says RSS-backed BMS

Trade union demanded reorganisation of the govt's top policy-making body

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) on Thursday said the ‘wrong’ polices of the NITI Aayog are creating jobless India and demanded reorganisation of the government’s top policy-making body.

“Wrong policies of the NITI Aayog are creating a jobless India,” said Saji Narayanan, National president of the BMS in a statement. The statement quoted him as speaking at a meeting organised by the Delhi state BMS against the wrong policy of the NITI Aayog and demanded of ‘equal pay for equal work’ for contract labourers. 

Narayanan demanded that the NITI Aayog should be reorganised with inclusion of those who think about India’s real concerns, failing which the BMS would be compelled to go for further agitation.

According to the statement, employment crisis is already India’s major economic issue and the country’s two major employment generating sectors — agriculture and small scale sector — are in crisis.

Agricultural land is being converted into industrial land and industrial land into service land, due to ‘perverted’ policy. So far, the NITI Aayog has not given serious thought to it, it said.

In BMS’ view, the policies are harming the sectors. The government’s efforts to generate jobs do not tally with the loss of employment taking place. The NITI Aayog is meant to advise the government on job creation, instead, its “job displacing paradigm is taking our economy in wrong direction. The reforms it has proposed are labour displacing and not labour intensive”, the union said. The NITI Aayog’s proposal to create a new category of “fixed term employment” in organised sector will destroy quality jobs and create substandard jobs, it said.

A major activity of the NITI Aayog is disinvestment. This will adversely effect quality employment in the PSUs. In the US, Walmart is called a job killer. NITI Aayog’s FDI policy is promoting such companies in India. Bidi sector, which employs crores of people, is in crisis, it added.