India lacks good data on economy and jobs as it is majoraly an informal economy, Bibek Debroy, the head of Prime Minister’s economic advisory panel, said on Monday, while a report claimed big buoyancy in employment numbers under Narendra Modi-led government.
Mr. Debroy highlighted that it is difficult to draw an inference as to what is happening on labour and employment on the basis of data gathered from the enterprises for the very simple reason that very few individuals in India work under an employee-employee kind of relationship.
“We don’t have very good data on economy and jobs because India is majorly an informal economy. So, therefore, we don’t have a very good data whether it is employment, labour or other things, quite unlike the so-called developed countries,” Mr. Debroy, also a member of the NITI Aayog, said at ‘Skoch Group Summit: The Inclusion Manifesto’ here. There is a large degree of self-employment, there is a large degree of informalisation in contracts. So, the only way I can get satisfactory data is through employment surveys of the kinds that the NSS undertakes,” he said.
According to the report released by think-tank Skoch Group on Monday, there is a big buoyancy in informal sector jobs under the Modi government. A detailed analysis and field research on MUDRA loan scheme, SHGs and infrastructure developments, especially rural roads and National Highways expansion, indicate that there is big buoyancy in informal sector jobs under Modi regime, the report said.
Skoch Group Chairman Sameer Kochhar said that as many as 2 crore jobs have been created in the informal sector till date under the present dispensation. An earlier Skoch report on job linkage of Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana revealed that 1.7 crore new jobs were generated in the first two years of the scheme, which was launched in April 2015.
Mr. Kocchar, however, added that the job situation seems tricky in the formal sector. “Is there any increase in the formal sector jobs, we can’t conclusively say, yes or no,” he said. Mr. Debroy mentioned that the government can do for the inclusion agenda is to deliver physical and social infrastructure. Poverty in society shows that people are deprived of social and physical infrastructure and which any government should strive to provide for agenda of inclusive growth, he noted.
“What do we want the government to do, what is the most important item from the perspective of the government in terms of driving inclusion agenda...It is my submission that the most important thing any government can do for the inclusion agenda is to deliver the physical and social infrastructure,” he said.
On subsidy, the Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister said the only way to define who should be subsidised can be derived through a decentralised census like the SECC (Socio-Economic Caste Census), not through surveys.
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