With the Indian economy growing at 7 percent plus since 1991, there is a substantial rise in demand for managers and workers. But the overwhelming majority of job seekers aren’t sufficiently qualified for industry and business job vacancies because of a huge and widening gap between the academy and India Inc – Dipta Joshi Deep within the Indian economy, a massive unemployment whirlwind is beginning an upward spiral that could sweep away the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance of 11 political parties ruling in New Delhi since 2014, in General Election 2019, now less than a year away. Gathering momentum, this gathering storm could completely transform the socio-economic landscape of the country, not necessarily for the better. In 2014 the BJP led by its charismatic and inspiring prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi swept to power at the Centre with an absolute majority, winning 282 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha — a clear electoral sweep unprecedented since the General Election of December 1984 when the Congress party led by the late Rajiv Gandhi, riding on a nationwide sympathy wave after the assassination of his mother prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, won 414 seats in the lower house. A major factor behind the BJP-Modi electoral triumph, was a promise made in its manifesto and repeatedly articulated by Modi during his coast-to-coast campaign speeches, that if elected, the BJP would generate 10 million additional jobs every year. This combined with the party’s promise of sab ke saath, sab ka vikas aroused tremendous enthusiasm of new beginnings, particularly within the youthful electorate (over 600 million of India’s total population of 1.25 billion is between the ages of 18-34), and gave BJP and Modi a huge mandate. Four years later, in the run-up to General Election 2019, that promise is nowhere near fulfilment. Official data of the Union ministry of labour and employment indicate that the organised sector (government-industry) generated an average of 800,000-1.2 million jobs a year during the second-term of the Congress-led UPA-II government (2009-14). Since then under the BJP-led NDA dispensation, despite a new methodology for measuring employment growth, which tracks job creation in eight selected sectors — manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, IT/BPO, and tourism hospitality — employment growth within the organised sector has averaged a mere 231,000 per year with the unorganised sector (agriculture and the informal economy) generating an estimated 3-4 million. For government and industry to absorb 12 million youth who enter the job market annually, the Indian economy has to chalk up a double digit (10 percent plus) rate of GDP growth, which it has never recorded in the past 70 years. This annual rate of growth is not impossible. It’s pertinent to note that until 1978 the annual GDP growth rate of our neighbouring People’s Republic of China (PRC) was almost on a par with India’s 3.5 percent per year. But in that watershed year the PRC under its visionary leader Deng Xiaoping, introduced the Four Modernisations national development policy to…
