ROZGAR

 

The priority requirement for accelerated employment generation is to revive economic growth and sustain it across the country at between 8-10% per year for well over a decade. This will be the Congress’s overall objective. Faster and broad-based economic growth is an essential pre-requisite for accelerating employment generation. The Congress will also adopt policies to expand employment in the organized sector, which has fallen precipitously in the last five years. Fiscal incentives to promote employment-intensive growth will be introduced.

Continued growth in agriculture will create new employment opportunities. This is particularly so in the central, eastern and northeastern regions of the country which have still to realize their full agricultural potential. New jobs will also be created in other areas of rural development like horticulture, aquaculture, afforestation, dairying and agro-processing. These need and will be provided new investment, credit, marketing and technology inputs. A stable long-term export policy for agricultural products and commodities will be announced.

The Congress will revamp the functioning of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) so as to make it a modern, research-based, technology-driven, customer-focused organization. New programmes for the modernization of the coir industry, handlooms, powerlooms, handicrafts, food processing, sericulture, wool development, leather, pottery, etc., will be launched.

A national Employment Guarantee Act will be enacted immediately. This will provide a legal guarantee for at least 100 days of employment on asset-creating public works programmes every year at minimum wage, for every rural household.

A greater thrust on labour-intensive exports of textiles, handicrafts, gems and jewelry, leather, software, engineering and consumer goods will also significantly boost employment. The textile industry will receive special focus in view of the increased competition in world markets from January 2005 as mandated by the WTO.

The concerns of small-scale industry like shortage of working capital, lack of technology and marketing, delayed payments, harassment by inspectors will be addressed expeditiously. A cluster approach to the development of small-scale industry will he adopted.

Along with vastly expanded credit facilities for self-employment, the services industry will be given all support to fulfill its true employment potential. This includes not just software and IT-enabled services, not just trade, distribution and transport, not just financial and telecommunications services but also tourism. Special infrastructural facilities for substantially expanding international and domestic tourism will be created. Reforms of laws and regulations that stand in the way of growth of the services industry will be undertaken.

The Congress will also establish a National Commission to monitor the functioning of enterprises in the informal sector, the problems they face in access to technology, credit and markets and recommend corrective measures on an on-going basis.

To enhance the employability of our youth, systematic efforts will be made to vocationalise secondary education and to establish at least one industrial training institute in each development block of the country through creative public-private partnerships. The employment exchange machinery will be revamped to provide a closer linkage between demand and supply for labour.

As an indicator of how seriously the Congress takes its commitment to employment growth, an annual Rozgar Report to the Nation will he prepared and released on May 1.