BENGALURU: While the BJP ahead of the2019 Lok Sabha elections promised to create 2 crore jobs annually, the reality is that 42% of graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed, Bahutva Karnataka, a forum for justice and harmony which has evaluated the incumbent BJP performance, has alleged. Representatives of the Bahutva Karnataka said that as the Lok Sabha polls are nearing, with a view for voters to choose wisely, they will be releasinga series of reports titled ‘Guarantee Checks’ evaluating the incumbent government claims concerning its performance, by presenting official claims and juxtapose the claims with evidence from official or other credible sources.
The first report in the series was released on Monday and an evaluation was done on- employment, wages, and all-around development of the incumbent government. Between 2011-12 and 2022-23, the share of the self-employed in the workforce has risen, the forum said. “More than half of the men and more than two thirds of women are presently ' self-employed’. Stagnant household earnings among the poor force more women to work even as unpaid helpers such as working without earnings in family farms or small shops because they cannot find any other remunerative employment,”the report added.
The report said that BJP claims that there has been a 42% growth in the national minimum wages and added, “An expert committee on wages, initiated by the Ministry of labor and Employment, Government of India, led by Anoop Satpathy in 2019, said that the national minimum floor wages in India should be at least Rs 375 per day which translates to Rs 3,050 per week in 2022-23. Nearly 30 crore workers earn less than this threshold amount.”
“In nominal terms, the GDP per capita in the last 10 yearshas increased by 60%. However,the income share of the top 10%of the population has been increasingand now it is 60% whilethe incomes of the others arereducing,” the report added.