The slip between the proverbial cup and the lip is showing. Upon taking up the mantle of prime ministership, Narendra Modi had pledged, in 2014, to create two crore jobs every year. Mr Modi is now in his 11th year in office. A simple mathematical calculation would show that in theory, Mr Modi’s government, if the prime minister had been true to his word, would have created 22 crore jobs by now. But now a report by the department of personnel and training that was submitted to a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice suggests that only an estimated 22 lakh jobs have been created in this time period. In other words, Mr Modi’s pledge for generating jobs appears to be yet another jumla. That is not all. There are other concerns. For instance, the government has not been forthcoming about the details of the appointments issued through the rozgar melas that have been organised amidst much fanfare. Several government posts, according to one Opposition member, have also been done away with.
That Mr Modi’s regime has been a monumental failure when it comes to employment generation is indisputable. The latest Periodic Labour Force Survey data show that joblessness among the youth still remains high. This has been an area of persistent concern during Mr Modi’s reign. In fact, the India Employment Report 2024, brought out by the International Labour Organization and the Institute of Human Development, had found that an astonishing 83% of jobless Indians were in their youth. The government’s stock response to these findings has been denial or the production of dubious data countering such claims. That India’s famed demographic dividend has been turned into a demographic burden in the last decade is a matter of utmost concern. Strangely, Mr Modi’s failure to resolve India’s unemployment crisis has not led to a massive electoral backlash yet. It is true that the Bharatiya Janata Party was returned to power short of a parliamentary majority of its own. But the festering job crisis was not enough to bring about a change in government. That ‘credit’ — the term is being used ironically — must go to India’s Opposition. Its failure to mobilise public opinion on joblessness is as stark as the government’s failure to create jobs.