Youth unsatisfied: NITI Aayog head
NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar says the Gujarat election has sent out a message that youth is unsatisfied, as what is being achieved is probably not in sync with their aspirations.
“I am not saying they are unemployed or else they wouldn’t have come out in such large numbers on motorcycles to election rallies. But, clearly, they are not satisfied as their aspirations might have grown,” Kumar told Business Standard.
He said the government should anticipate future skill requirements, which existing strategies were not capable of doing, and greater focus should be placed on apprenticeship. “There is a 1962 Act which mandates that companies keep a portion of their workforce as apprentices and the government gives subsidy of ~1,250 (per head) through two schemes. My suggestion is to raise this amount and give the assurance to the employer that this does not mean an extra inspector for them,” the NITI Aayog vice-chairman said.
He said poverty estimates were just theoretical exercise, without much practical relevance to policy-making. A better idea would be to focus more sharply on human development indices, as it served the purpose of addressing the deprived sections of the population much more than merely estimating poverty.
He said the Gujarat electoral results were a vindication of the government’s commitment to reforms. The fact that urban Gujarat voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party meant that all those who were expected to be hurt by the twin reforms of demonetisation and the goods and services tax haven’t been impacted much. “The results also show that the business and trading community, rightly expected to be hurt by both demonetisation and GST, clearly don’t fear getting into a formal economy, at the same time, they would also like implementation issues to be addressed.”
The polls were also a message that traders and businessmen liked the fact that the governance was becoming transparent, accountable and less discriminatory. At the same, the results also pointed towards a bigger issue in agriculture. A clear message that the ongoing seven-decade-old model of agriculture, based on extensive reliance on subsidy by the government at every stage, was not going to work. The government should focus on addressing the issue through a new approach, he said.