Click to play videoNew Delhi: Worried over the spate of electoral reverses in various state Assembly elections, the Congress is going on what seems a hasty damage control.
After its slogan of 2004 - Congress ka haath gareeb ke saath (Congress' hand is for the poor) - the party has now unveiled another trump card.
As the countdown to General Elections of 2009 begins, Economic Adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, C Rangarajan says there will be employment for all by 2010.
“A study that I have done shows that by 2010, the labour force and the work force will almost be equal in the sense that there will be no unemployment even assuming a growth rate of 8 per cent. In fact the economy will grow at a higher rate than this. Therefore the question that remains is not so much of quantity employment as the quality and this will depend on improving the total factory productivity both in agriculture and unorganised sector,” says Rangarajan.
But there is a rider.
“They may still have an employment which gives them a level of income which is not equal to the level at which they can be taken out of poverty,” he says.
But as is the case most of the times, the Left allies have been quick to dismiss the claim and think the government is living in an illusionary world.
“The growth pattern so far has suggested that the employment generation has always been much more than growth rate,” says CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury.
Opposition BJP – whose India Shining campaign spelled doom for the alliance at the Centre in the last Lok Sabha polls - has also been quick to raise a voice of dissent.
“This is not inclusive growth, this is not equitable growth,” says BJP leader Prakash Javadekar.
However, despite all the statements and claims, Government does admit employment would not be enough to lift the worker above the poverty line or improve his quality of life.
This is because that requires skilled jobs in factories but over 60 per cent of the country still survives on agriculture.
Whether the party’s desperate attempt at its version of the India Shining will work or not is for time to tell.
(With inputs from Meetu Jain)
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