The second major concern with job promises lies in the functioning used to estimate the job production capacity of a particular project. An RTI investigation for the Ministry of Textiles revealed complicated information about the functioning used to estimate job production capacity for a new project.
In March 2023, the Government of India announced the establishment of seven -3 lakh jobs per park. Asked about the functioning behind this figure, the ministry replied that since the textile industry is labor-intensive, they “agreed” that each acre would generate 200 direct jobs per acre.
At the annual conference of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, it will translate around 83 million jobs per year. To keep it in perspective, during the financial year 2022-23, 1.38 crore new member employees joined the Provident Fund (EPF). Gadkari’s statement implies that EVS can generate 60% of the total new EPFO members in the same year alone, which seems like an exaggerated claim. These types of statements are often made because there is no strong accountability mechanism to track the real job generation, leaving space for such speculative claims.
Former Railway Minister Piyush Goyal claimed on the World Economic Forum that however, there is no clear definition of what is involved in the “railway ecosystem”, and there is no system to justify the ministry for such statements.
Development economist, Dipa Sinha said that the government invests in projects like roads, railways and airports promising employment generation. However, there should be a system to track real jobs created by these projects.
To find out the progress on this front, I filed an RTI with the department for promoting industry and internal trade, seeking data on jobs made under the PLI scheme for white goods. In its response, DPIIT revealed that the job generation figures were entirely based on self-certification by the beneficiary companies, which did not have a cross-verification or audit of the data presented.
Accountability is the cornerstone of our democratic rule. During the formation of the Indian Constitution, the component assembly agreed to unanimously independent India. However, there was no consensus on the method of governance. While the US-style presidential system offered stability, the UK-style parliamentary system emphasized accountability. BR Ambedkar chose accountability on stability for a distressed India-a bold decision that highlights its importance. Nevertheless, even after 75 years of independence, we lack a strong mechanism for the leaders elected for the promises made by them about jobs and employment generation.
(Sukek Patel is an independent journalist).
