Mumbai, Dec 7 (PTI) Amid fears of jobless growth,former President Pranab Mukherjee today urged the governmentto ensure employment creation with a special focus on therural unemployed.
"What type of a growth would we like to have? We musthave growth with jobs. Jobless growth cannot be the object ofa country like ours,” he said speaking at the RD NationalCollege here.
"We must have job creation and there must be a balancebetween the job creation in the urban unemployment and therural unemployment," he added.
Mukherjee, who demitted office in July this year, saidrecent figures suggest a "marked improvement" in the reductionof unemployment ratio in urban areas but the rural areascontinue to face troubles.
"I do hope the government and particularly the financeminister, while presenting his budget, will take note ofthis," he said.
The remarks come within months of the complaint bythen Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, about joblesseconomic growth in the country.
"The current growth is a jobless growth. Many Europeanand Asian countries, including India, are facing it... growthis being reported but it is not reflecting in employmentgeneration," he had said.
A slew of experts have been stressing on the need tocreate enough jobs in the economy, warning that the country'sdemographic dividend can turn into a demographic nightmare ifthis area is not addressed.
He said providing employment for a limited days everyyear is now a constitutional guarantee after the UPAgovernment passed the right to jobs in 2008.
The countryÂ’s GDP growth accelerated to 6.3 per centfor the second quarter after plummeting to a three-year low of5.7 per cent in the preceding three months.
Mukherjee, who has held the Finance portfolio twice,welcomed the growth uptick and said that the next two quarterswill see the economy growing by over seven per cent.
He also said that the present level of inflationmeasured both by the wholesale prices and consumer prices isat a "comfortable level."He said the current state of non-performing assets inthe banking system is a "major concern."Without touching upon the need for reforms at thestate-run lenders, he welcomed the Government's move to injectcapital into the banks and added that every finance ministerwill have to do it.
He claimed that the banks have been able to overcomethe problems of NPAs without the government having to providehuge support as seen in some western countries post-crisis.
Mukherjee asked for massive investments in theeducation sector so that we can deliver on the constitutionalpromise of social justice.
The countryÂ’s universities have not been able toproduce one Noble laureate since C V Raman and the people ofIndian origin like Amartya Sen won the coveted prize afterworking in foreign varsities, he pointed out.
He stressed on the need for an enabling atmosphere,and also rued that the present education system has not beenable to create the motivation which is needed for researchpurposes. PTI AA DSKDSK.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.