Providing jobs to young a challenge for govt: FM

The government on Friday admitted that providing more and better jobs to the young still remained a challenge, even as the Indian economy was back on a high growth path after hit by the global financial crisis for two years.

At the annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said his efforts at fiscal consolidation would lead to macroeconomic stability and fuel further high growth that would also lead to more opportunities for the young. But the government alone could not meet the aspirations of the young, he said, seeking the help of industry in this regard.

“The challenge to create and sustain more and better opportunities for a young, growing and aspiring India, however, remains,” the finance minister said, while asserting that the Indian economy was now more confident in dealing with challenges, whether domestic or external. He asked industry to upgrade vocational skills of the workforce, improve job opportunities and productivity, and reaping the demographic dividend in full measure.

Mukherjee said a few large sustainable skill development initiatives could be taken up to meet the target of 150 million skilled workers by 2022, set by the National Skill Development Council. He asked CII to take the lead in five to 10 sectors in setting up skill councils in manufacturing, health care and mining.

The Indian economy is estimated to have grown by 8.6 per cent in 2010-11, after its growth slowed down to 8 per cent and 6.8 per cent in the previous two years respectively due to the global financial meltdown. For this financial year, the finance ministry has pegged the country’s economic growth at 9 per cent, give or take 0.25 percentage points.

However, the finance minister said there were constraints on the economy which could come in the way of sustaining the high growth rate. As such, he sought industry’s help in accelerating capacities in key infrastructure industries.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia also said big cities with a population of more than five million should experiment with the public-private partnership model in electricity distribution along with other infrastructure projects.

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said her government had sough cooperation from private parties in developing dwellings for economically weaker sections of society in the capital. “Land is with the Delhi government and private companies can build houses and also put part of that land for commercial use,” she said.

Both Ahluwalia and Dikshit favoured direct cash subsidy to the poor. Dikshit said her government was working on a model on these lines in certain areas of the city states. Ahluwalia said subsidies, including those given by states, have reached 2-3 per cent of GDP and direct transfer can plug leakages.

Planning commission member Pronab Sen said India’s food inflation would never come down below 7 per cent until government takes effective steps to build capacities in storage and warehousing.

Even though fruits and vegetables production is rising by 4-5 per cent annually, it is being outpaced by demand that has been growing at almost 7-8 per cent, he said.