I&B Ministry seeks data on job creation from 10 ministries

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has written to 10 ministries, including the Labour Ministry, seeking data on employment generated in various sectors under them, official sources said.

They said the ministry has sought the details ostensibly to counter allegations by the opposition parities that the NDA government has failed to generate employment.

The I & B Ministry is collating this data as part of its efforts to highlight, during Independence Day celebrations next month, that the promises made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his previous four I-Day speeches have been fulfilled, they said.

The data collected would be projected by the I & B Ministry through various mediums such as Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC), Doordarshan, press releases, and monthly magazines Yojana and Kurukshetra, the sources said.

The ministries of food processing industries, labour, and micro, small and medium enterprises, are among the 10 ministries that have been asked to send data on the jobs created in the sectors that come under them.

The move by the I & B Ministry comes days after Prime Minister Modi rejected the opposition's charge of lack of employment generation, citing data provided by state governments to ask how the Centre could create joblessness if the states were creating "good numbers of jobs".

He had said that the lack of data on jobs had given the opposition the opportunity "to paint a picture of their choice".

More than lack of jobs, the issue is lack of data on jobs, Modi had said.

The opposition, led by Congress President Rahul Gandhi, has been critical of the Modi goverment over jobs creation and has alleged that it had failed to fulfil its poll promise of generating employment.

The BJP had come to power in 2014 with job creation being one of its major poll plank.