Bengal finance minister Asim Dasgupta in Calcutta on Saturday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, Aug. 6: High growth rate of the Indian economy should entail higher employment opportunities, said Asim Dasgupta, state finance minister.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in association with The Telegraph, he said, “Employment generation is the key and when we talk about growth, we should talk about job-led growth and not jobless growth.”

The Bengal finance minister prescribed a total investment of Rs 40,000 crore to create enough jobs per annum to absorb the unemployment growth. In a year, the country adds 56 lakh employable persons ? 32 lakh from the rural areas and 24 lakh from the urban areas.

“We should be able to generate 70 lakh jobs per annum ? 40 lakh in rural areas and 30 lakh in urban centres,” said Dasgupta. He pointed out that the unemployment growth rate in the country has increased from 6 per cent to 9 per cent in recent years in spite of the economic upswing.

“Such a situation is untenable and might lead to disintegration and division amongst the population of the country,” he noted.

“Apart from creating employment, we should also target at achieving a sustainable economic growth and not a widely oscillating one,” Dasgupta elaborated. Over the last few years, the average growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) has been 5.9 per cent. For two years in between the rate was below 5 per cent and for one year, it was above 8 per cent.

In comparison, the average growth rate of the state has been 7.1 per cent, with 4 years having above 7 per cent and one year below 6 per cent. “We should move towards a more competition in all spheres to achieve a higher growth rate,” said Dasgupta. “This should come with decentralisation of power ? from the centre to the common man,” he added.

Dasgupta stressed on the importance of public-private partnership in various fields including infrastructure development.

However, he cautioned about disinvestment in the petroleum sector.