By Manohar Manoj
Unemployment remains the number one issue for the opposition mobilizing against the ruling party at the Centre. By the way, unemployment has already been a perennial and all-time issue on the political scene of India along with inflation and corruption.But right now the opposition’s attack on the government regarding unemployment is due to the government not handling the situation completely after the Corona period. Every government in the world, including India, was helpless because of the unemployment that arose due to the slackening of the entire economy due to the Corona epidemic in India.But now the Indian economy, which is getting a revival and new life after Corona, has not yet been able to control all kinds of unemployment in the country. If we look at it from the point of view of the economy, we find that the situation of full employment means availability of employment to all job seekers, practically never arises for all the persons who are interested in employment, but the objective of all the governments is to achieve this situation at least.In India, we can not make a fixed opinion about unemployment because there are at least three categories of both unemployed and employed here. First is rural and agricultural unemployed, second is semi-skilled and semi-educated unemployed in urban and metropolitan factory work and third is urban and metropolitan middle-class youth unemployed with higher and professional education. In comparison to these three categories of unemployed, there are two main categories of employment providers, one is the government sector and the other is the private sector.If we look carefully, the corresponding policy, program, and implementation module of employment belong to both unorganized and organized workers of the above three categories things always look dissimilar. Employment generation in the government sector depends on its needs and in the private sector, it is completely dependent on the dynamics of the market. Talking about the private sector, the creation of jobs generated by the tremendous rise of domestic demand in our economy has definitely pushed up employment opportunities. However, due to the impending unprecedented recession and dysfunction in the external sector of the economy, job creation is still stalled.If we talk about the employment generated by the government, then in that matter the employment policy of the Modi government has been accused of heavy indifference even before Corona. Whereas, in spite of this, the Modi government continued to believe that the medicine for unemployment is to generate continuous self-employment and self-entrepreneurship. In this sequence, she has been repeatedly referring to her Mudra loan scheme. Under this, as in the current year, about Rs 4.5 lakh crore loan has been allocated and in the last years, it has provided a total of Rs 23 lakh crore as a business loan to about forty crore people. Regarding educational employment, the government has been saying unofficially that it cannot provide unlimited employment in government offices, and for this, it cites the start-up business, under which 85 thousand of start-ups have been created in India so far.If seen, self-employment and entrepreneurship in the country, whether it is in the form of doing business in semi-educated groups or start-up businesses among people with higher professional education, cannot be a complete solution to unemployment. Because not every worker can be self-employed and the majority of the working class all over the world rely on job vacancies either from government departments or established private corporations.The understanding of the Modi government in this matter has been of the same vague and casual nature as the previous governments. Spontaneous employment generation due to government construction projects in Sagarmala, Digital India is undoubtedly on the rise, but the government’s procrastination and indecisiveness in filling the necessary vacancies of all its departments regarding educational employment is clearly visible. This trend is visible not only in the Modi government but also in the previous central governments as well as in all the state governments.If we go to the root of this, the reason for this is that no government wants to give permanent government jobs which has been going on since the past. They now shy away from giving a confirmed government job equipped with all labor welfare laws. Governments feel that a lifetime government son-in-law i.e. a job with a hefty salary for the first sixty years and then a job with a hefty pension puts a burden on the exchequer of the government, on the other hand, it creates a situation of imbalance in the government’s cost and delivery or income.But now the question is why no government thinks according to the requirements of operating the huge machinery of the government, the implementation of all the programs, policies, and schemes of the government. The fact of the matter is that employment generation is operated through the national policy modules. If govt. is not willing to deliver a financially burdensome pucca job scheme, then it should broadly frame a new recruitment policy based on a reasonable contract rate along with good working conditions. If it is done then there would be nothing wrong with it. Employment given by the government is not a dole nor is it a favor to anyone, rather it must be a win-win for both the party, which means employer and employees which paves the strengthening of the economy. But the irony is that instead of taking a bold decision on this, any government fills up government vacancies both contractual and permanent under political pressures and also in a piecemeal fashion. Due to this, a situation of disparity, discrepancy, and inequality arises in society. In the last election, under political pressure, the central government announced two lakh appointments in the railways, but it did not materialize. Now here the Modi government is trying to gain political popularity by distributing one-time appointment letters of different government posts in bunches. But from the point of view of completeness, there is a discriminatory policy going on in India to create two types of world regarding employment policy. Because of this, about ten lakh sanctioned posts of different categories are lying vacant in the Government of India and their recruitment is not being done in an essential manner. Similarly, about fifty lakh posts are lying vacant in the state governments, but all governments understand that no matter how far their development and welfare schemes suffer, there is no need to show their interest in filling them without political benefits, or else they feel that this is a bailout whose financial burden they cannot bear. Because of this, the imbalance in the number of recruitments as compared to retirements has been clearly visible in the last ten years. For political gains, the newly formed government of Nitish Lalu combined in Bihar has announced that it will provide about one million government jobs. But no quick action has been seen so far on this. The reason for this is clear they do not see a balance between political populism and the condition of the treasury.If the governments impose the policy of equal contract on better service conditions for the entire labor force of the country, private and government organized and unorganized, then it will strike the right balance between the productivity of jobs and working conditions. And the performance of the government and the economy will also get accelerated. However, along with this, it is also necessary to explore and find out new vistas for employment generation in the country/