No job creation road map by PM's Economic Advisory Council so far: Govt

The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister set up recently has not laid down any road map for job creation and infrastructure financing, but has taken up wide ranging issues on macro economy, agriculture and health, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

The Council has held three meetings so far and deliberated on wide ranging issues including review of macro- economy, agriculture and rural development, skill upgradation, enhancing investments in health, among others, Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

"Based on deliberations, the Council has been providing advisory inputs to the government from time to time. However, there is no specific policy paper submitted by the Council for job creation and infrastructure financing avenues," the minister said.

He was responding to a question whether the Council has spelt out a clear road map to ramp up job creation and infrastructure financing avenues.

The government constituted the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister on September 26, 2017 under the chairmanship of NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy for a period of two years.

The Council has been tasked to analyse issues, economic or otherwise, referred to it by the Prime Minister and advice him, address issues of macro-economic importance as well as attend to any task desired by the PM from time to time.

To a separate question, if increase in GDP growth is bound to boost growth in employment, the minister said employment elasticity of growth, referred as the rate of employment growth that accompanies every percentage of GDP growth, can be positive, negative or zero.

"The rate of growth in GDP and the rate of growth in employment may not commensurate because the rate of increase in employment generation also depends on various other factors such as improved technologies, adoption of technology, which sectors account for growth, skills, cost of capital, labour participation rate etc," Singh said.

He said besides targeted programmes to boost job opportunities, the government has started flagship programmes like Make in India, Digital India, Swachh Bharat Mission, Housing for All, Sagar Mala, among others and introduced reforms like Goods and Services (GST) that have the potential to generate productive employment opportunities.

Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana incentivises the industry to promote job creation by reimbursing employer's contribution of 8.33 per cent EPS (Employees' Provident Fund) made to new employees, Singh said.

The government has also announced special packages for textile, leather, footwear and accessories sector where in addition to 8.33 per cent EPS, the government will also bear 3.67 per cent of EPF contribution for all new employees enrolling in EPFO for first three years of their employment.

A United Nations labour report earlier this year had projected India's unemployment to increase in 2017 and 2018 because of stagnation in job creation.

Unemployment in India is projected to increase from 17.7 million last year to 17.8 million in 2017 and 18 million next year, the report had said.