CPI slams NDA over NSSO report

Attacking NDA government on the issue of unemployment data on a NSSO report, the CPI Friday demanded that the actual report be put before Parliament.

"What has come out now is only through press leakage. It should be introduced in Parliament. There is a need that the true report is known to the country," CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy told reporters here.

The government Thursday said it has not finalised the survey on labour force which reportedly showed that the unemployment rate in the country hit a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18.

The National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO's) periodic labour force survey, according to the Business Standard newspaper, states that unemployment was last this high in 1972-73. The unemployment rate was 2.2 per cent in 2011-12, it said.

Unemployment grew in the country because of the economic policies of the NDA government, Reddy alleged.

"..It is a horrible thing to try to hide the truth about unemployment. Unemployment grew in the country because of the economic policies followed by the BJP-NDA government," he said.

On government's defence that the unemployment data as put out in a media report was only a draft report which was not approved by the government, he said NSSO's reports are generally made public and that there is no need for them to be approved by the government.

Claiming that the NDA government indulged in jugglery of numbers, he said it is introducing new accounting systems to show the declining growth rate to be high.

Unemployment grew as public sector has been ignored by the NDA government as it tried to encourage private sector, he alleged.

"Private sector tries to provide jobs to minimum possible number of people," Reddy said.

The 'Make in India' remained only a "bogus slogan", he claimed.

"... This situation arose because of the pro-corporate policies.

Government should take responsibility for this. We demand that Narendra Modi apologise to the country for being responsible for price rise and unemployment rising to a five-decade high," he said.

The Rs 6,000 being offered to farmers by the NDA government is not adequate and Rs 12,000 subsidy should be given, he said.

The MSP should be increased and Swaminathan Commission recommendations implemented in toto for the crisis in agriculture to be addressed, Reddy said.

The President's address to the joint session of Parliament was disappointing, with no reference made to key issues like price rise, he alleged.

Referring to reports that the ruling TRS in Telangana was equidistant from both the Congress and BJP, he said the TRS supported GST and all other major decisions of the NDA.

It is only a "friendly wrestling" between TRS and BJP, he said.