Recently, an organization named CMIE has said in one of its releases that due to the outbreak and lockdown of covid in India, employment has been hit hard. The organization says that during 2020-21, there was a decline of 6.6 percent in real GDP.
Although the economy has grown by 8.95 percent in 2021-22, but still the real GDP has increased from Rs 145.2 lakh crore to only Rs 147.7 lakh crore, that is, it is still around the pre-Covid GDP. The organization says that despite the increase in GDP, employment has not yet returned after the decline, according to CMIE, employment reached only 40.18 crores in 2021-22, while it was 40.89 crores in 2019-20. Unemployment, which was 3.29 crores in 2019-20, reached 3.33 crores in 2021-22 i.e. an increase of only four lakhs.
The conclusion of the organization is that although there is a decrease of 71 lakhs in employment, but the increase of unemployment by only four lakhs indicates that the unemployed people have now given up the hope of employment. For some time, due to some reasons, the employment related data in the country is not being published by the National Sample Survey Organization. These figures are more reliable. It is natural that in the absence of government data, the figures of institutions like CMIE get a place in the media, but unfortunately the figures of CMIE have been questioned. Analysts believe that the CMIE's figures on unemployment and labor force size do not match with other indicators .
Therefore they cannot be trusted. The MNREGA Act guarantees at least 100 days of employment to every rural unemployed in every financial year. Even if a person is getting casual employment somewhere in the city / village etc., even if he remains unemployed for 100 days or less, then he can get employment under MNREGA. This means that if unemployment rises, so does the demand for MGNREGA.
CMIE says that even if there is 7.5 percent GDP growth in 2022-23, the unemployment rate will increase, but we have to understand that the recovery after corona in the economy is not a normal recovery. In this recovery some fundamental changes are expected in the economy and all the indicators are pointing towards these changes .
The monthly average of GST collection in the last quarter of the last financial year was 1.42 lakh crores. The unprecedented GST collection of Rs 1.68 lakh crore in the first month of this financial year is definitely pointing towards an uptick in the economy. In March 2022, 7.7 crore e-way bills were generated, which was more than 13 percent of the 6.8 crore bills generated in February.
Due to the shortage of semi-conductors in the country, many industries including auto mobile, electronic, telecom have been affected. Yet the rising GST revenue is indicating an uptick in manufacturing in the economy. Due to the self-reliant India policy, heavy emphasis was placed on self-employment. He is going . In the Narendra Modi government from the very beginning, emphasis has been laid on 'Make in India' while reducing the dependence on imports.
Protective import duties have been imposed on many products from the year 2018 to reduce imports from China. Mobile phones are now being exported in large quantities from India. Production Linked Incentive Scheme has been started by the Government of India to promote the manufacture of 16 types of products in the country.
Efforts to promote manufacturing , start ups and entrepreneurship are showing results . But in the release of CMIE, the employment figures for 2022 are being imagined on the basis of the elasticity of employment estimated on the basis of 2014 data , which is ridiculous . The Government of India should soon present the correct picture of employment figures, so that the correct information can be found.