Former Union finance minister P. Chidambaram asked the government on Monday to explain how it planned to achieve its target of creating 78.5 lakh jobs a year till 2030 to address the problem of unemployment.

Speaking during the debate on the Union budget in the Rajya Sabha, Chidambaram pointed to flaws in the unemployment data in thegovernment’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS). The PLFS said that the unemployment rate (UR) among those aged 15 and above had improved year on year since 2017-18 from 6 per cent to 3.2 per cent in 2023-24.

“The most grave challenge facing India is unemployment. The PLFS concluded that the UR is 3.2 per cent. Any UR less than 5 per cent equals full employment. If the UR has fallen to 3.2 per cent, why should we worry? The same PLFS says youth unemployment is 10.2 per cent and the graduate unemployment rate is 13 per cent. How does it conclude that the total UR is 3.2 per cent?” he asked, adding that finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had forgotten the poor in her budget.