‘Quota obsession shows the country isn’t putting right emphasis on policy’
MUMBAI: India is at the risk of falling into a middle income trap with poor human capital and low-quality infrastructure, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economist Abhijit Banerjee. Speaking at the Exim Bank’s 34th commencement day annual lecture, Banerjee said a reset of our policymaking is long overdue as we stare at a host of new problems. Edited excerpts from an interview:
What has the centre done right in terms of welfare schemes? This government has gone for a number of ideas worth exploring. It has gone too quickly without enough homework. If you look at the concept of Jan Dhan Yojana or Swachh Bharat Mission or Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana or Ayushman Bharat, at some level these are ideas which need to be put on the table for public debate. The reason why Swachh Bharat faces challenges is because there are a number of behavioural challenges. People don’t like waterless toilets. There is no reason not to use them. There is a bunch of innovations that happened in the previous government. Other than Aadhaar, this government hasn’t taken them up. A good example is the banking correspondent model, which is the right complement to Jan Dhan Yojana. And it hasn’t been implemented very well. As a result, Jan Dhan Yojana is not going to be implemented very well as well. They announce the scheme first and see the fallout later.
What’s your view on 10% reservation in jobs and education to economically backward sections in the general category?
If we keep adding more quotas, you dilute quota for somebody else. If 100% is covered by quotas, then that is equivalent to no one being covered. We are heading there. In election time, it’s a clever move by the government. I tend to not love expansion of quotas. Not such because of the usual argument that you won’t get the most talented people, but it creates a political focus on quotas. We are not going to solve the problem of unemployment through government jobs. Let’s focus on issues where the fight needs to be fought. A country that is obsessed with getting quotas is a country not putting the right emphasis on policy.
How would you rate this government’s success at job creation? There is a mismatch between people’s expectations and what jobs are available. That mismatch creates a huge problem. People hate their jobs. In your early 30s, according to NSSO, every male is employed. It can’t be that there is no job. Every male who is above 20 and doesn’t have class X qualification is employed. Only unemployment is in the age group of educated 20s. They are not looking for jobs. They are taking tests. It’s the top half of education distribution. We have no other problem of unemployment. We can talk about Make in India. We are not close to being an explosion of manufacturing employment. We can talk about change in labour laws. I don’t think any of this will make any of the good jobs treble. The government doesn’t have a magic wand. We are talking about creating 50 million jobs. I don’t see a way of creating many million jobs. We should think of a world where we are not going to add a number of very good jobs irrespective of whichever government is in power. Mr Modi promised all of this. But I don’t think anybody knows how to change the employment landscape.