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Does India As A State Obliged Towards Her Citizens For Providing Them Employment?

As the Modi-led BJP government has failed to rescue India from Job crisis in its five-year term, the question is whether the government has done enough to maintain the equilibrium in the job market of the country? And whether or not the government should be held liable for creating this crisis in the first place?

job-state-responsibility
Screenshot from movie 3 idiots

Article 41 {Right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases} under DPSP says: “The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want.” The DPSP cannot be enforced by any court, but the principles laid down in this part are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country, and it should be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws.

We also need to look back to Modi government's policy to see what was done to the unemployment problem. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) is a skill development initiative India was an attempt to help and empower the youth, make them “employable”. The scheme has a target to train 1 crore Indian youth from 2016-20, but its outcome didn't meet the target. Mudra Yojana was another government scheme to empower the poor entrepreneurs, which mostly include small enterprises. Under this scheme, loans up to ₹10 lakhs are given for non-agricultural activities. According to a report by the SKOCH Group, this scheme has generated 1.68 crore incremental jobs in the first two years of its launch. Startup India was another similar government program to help entrepreneurs to build their businesses, create more startups and with them, more jobs.

So far Modi's government's policy has only been limited to promote self-employment and create new startups. It may cause the public to clap, making it sound like a big achievement, although in reality, there is intense competition in the market. The most potential threat is the competition from giant companies with seemingly limitless investments. Innovative ideas do play a role in the success of a business, whether big or small, but the coming of ideas which could be implemented for generating profits is a hazy thing, what’s clear is that a small enterprise owner cannot beat the corporate in implementing that idea.

The craze for government jobs is deeply undermined here. Entrepreneurship is mostly limited to the creamy layer who get the chance to receive education in India's top management and engineering colleges. Self-employment, though open to all, is difficult to sustain by the poor and middle-class with bad education. Most of them rely on coaching institutes to get a government job and make their living secure. And the others, who are employed by private players, have their own stories to tell. Many of these players indeed play with their workers by erasing the line between job and exploitation, treating their labour as a commodity. They pay low wages to the employees, deny holidays, and even make them work overtime without any incentive. People continue to work because working overtime is always better than not working at all.

It's the government fault to ignore the youth who voted Modi to power because they believed him to bring the so-called “acche din”. Unemployment was on the rise even before 2014, but the job vacancies were consistent and were sufficient to have room for the meritorious. During Modi’s tenure, the number of vacancies began to plunge, especially in the government sectors. The government must be held accountable for rendering a large number of young people unemployed and is now trying very hard to divert attention from this issue. 

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