People in agriculture underemployed, share in GDP at 16%, says FM

FINANCE MINISTER Arun Jaitley said the agriculture sector is not generating enough employment, and has failed to give subsistence to farmers, who constitute more than 55 per cent of the population.

“Agriculture in India barely gives subsistence to agriculturists. In fact, people are already underemployed there. We can't afford to have 55 per cent of people in agriculture contributing 16 per cent to the national GDP. That creates inequalities,” Jaitley said.

He was here to inaugurate the Hyderabad campus of Symbiosis International University. The 40-acre campus is located at Kothur in Mahaboobnagar district. Education is an important tool which is creating human resources and it is necessary to give freedom to educational institutions which create talent, Jaitley said.

Further, it is important to take the opportunities in the fourth industrial revolution which is essentially low-cost quality manufacturing. Addressing students, Jaitley said the country had missed three manufacturing revolutions, the latest being the low-cost manufacturing revolution.

Jaitley said the government should resist the urge to control everything in a liberalised economy. Delivering Justice Konda Madhva Reddy Memorial lecture, Jaitley said India did not have the "intellectual honesty" to admit that the previous economic model was at least "partly fraud".

"If you compare the pre-1991 with the post-1991 situation...there is one lesson as far as the government is concerned. Inherently government has an urge to control. Governments have an urge to regulate. Governments have urge to become overbearing. All this is somewhat inconsistent with the post-1991 environment," he said.

"Government then have to become facilitators. The government's urge to control has to be restrained," he said. FE & PTI