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Farming GM crops, employment fund — what govt panel has suggested to create 20 cr jobs in 5 yrs

A Working Group of Ministers on employment generation and skill development submitted its report to PM Modi, making 63 suggestions across 18 sectors for job creation.

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New Delhi: Looking to create 20 crore job opportunities in the next five years, a government-appointed Working Group of Ministers (WGoM) has suggested allowing farming of Genetically Modified (GM) maize and soybean crops, private bikes for ride-sharing, expediting road projects and starting new ones, among others.

Headed by Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, the WGoM on employment generation and skill development submitted its report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month. ThePrint has accessed the report.

In its report, the panel recommended launching a massive “mission” to create 20 crore job opportunities, suggesting various measures across sectors. According to the panel, this would require an investment of Rs 2 lakh crore by the government and Rs 12.7 lakh crore from the private sector over a period of five years.

Among other suggestions, the panel called on the government to form a sovereign investment fund to support employment generation initiatives, and launch a massive drive for completion of road projects while adopting the EPC (engineering procurement and construction) mode of contracting and land pooling method.

The panel said there is a major potential for creating new job opportunities that have not been exploited.

Modi had constituted the WGoM earlier this year with a mandate to suggest strategies for rapid increase in employment by creating new opportunities, apart from quickly restoring the jobs lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The opposition has been critical of the government over job losses and unemployment as the Indian economy heads for a double-digit contraction in the ongoing fiscal.


Also read: Urban MGNREGA is a short-sighted idea, Modi govt has shown good sense to drop it


Work participation concerns

In its report, the WGoM pointed out a few concerns including the declining work participation rates for women workers.

“The work participation rates declined for both men and women. However, the decline has been faster for women; from 42% in 2004-05 to 22% in 2017-18. Women participation rates in rural areas declined significantly from 2011 to 2018. In fact, 34 million women dropped out of the workforce during this period. This is a matter of great concern,” the report said.

For generating jobs through improving women participation in the workforce, the group suggested: “Model new behaviors, promote positive role models and create awareness on consequences of adverse gender norms for men and women especially in the Gangetic plains states such as UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana where LFPR (labour force participation rate) for women is less than 15%.”

Major suggestions

The WGoM made 63 recommendations across 18 sectors in its report. While some have a direct bearing on new opportunities, others are catalytic in nature to enable demand and supply of the workforce.

A number of suggestions made are structural in nature too. For instance, the panel has suggested setting up a National Compliance Commission to reduce the overall compliance burden on enterprises, establishing a unique corporate identity by assigning a unique enterprise number (UEN) to each and every enterprise in the country.

It also suggested establishing a National Employment and Entrepreneurship Mission along with a National Employment Fund that may also serve as a sovereign fund to support job generation initiatives.

“It will offer grants provisioning to principle needs for workers, debt investments to lenders and corporates, and equity infusion to entrepreneurs and startups. Create a National Employment Authority (NEA) to govern investments in the National Employment Fund (NEF),” it said.

“The NEA could operate under the aegis of Cabinet Committee on Employment and Skill Development and will work with third-party implementation partners Recommendation. Transfer unassigned or under-utilized funds for skills development, by other departments and ministries, to the NEF,” it added.

The panel also stressed that private investment across three sectors agriculture, industry and services has a much larger share than public investment. “Therefore, we have to concentrate more on the private sector for employment creation, especially in these three sectors,” it further said.


Also read: Why China, like India, is now looking inwards for ‘atmanirbharta’


Other recommendations

There are a number of other recommendations made by the panel to improve job creation.

For agriculture, the main suggestions included: allowing controlled GM farming of maize and soybean crops in feed production to make the poultry sector export globally competitive; training people on new-age digital and farm mechanisation skills to provide local opportunities in agri-business; and promoting hyperlocal businesses using women as resellers of agriculture produce.

The WGoM also called for developing 20 crore bee colonies against the 34 lakh figure currently, and holistic promotion of apiaries that looks beyond traditional honey and wax and diversifies into products such as pollen, propolis, royal jelly and bee venom.

As part of the Make for the world initiative, the group sought incentives to highly labour-intensive export sectors that substantially leverage women labour force, especially shrimp farming.

Launch a holistic housing programme in 10 major cities and encourage ownership, through tax exemptions and GST equalization, the panel told the government.

It also sought full utilisation of the National Infrastructure Pipeline outlay for roads, apart from nudge to states to execute power purchase agreements to boost the installed capacity in renewable energy.

For tourism, the panel suggested bringing it under Concurrent List or treating it as ‘Residual matter’ in the Constitution, as well the creation of a National Tourism Board to simplify land issues and adoption of National Tourism Policy.

It also called for ‘industry’ status to Travel Tourism and Hospitality (TTH) sector. Among other changes, it asked to allow private operators to facilitate the official registration of Homestays/Bed and Breakfasts to reduce shortage of hotel rooms.

The WGoM also called for amending the Motor Vehicles Act and other regulations to allow commercial transportation of people on white-plate bikes.


Also read: Bihar holds out hope for India’s farmers, but only PM Modi seems to see it


 

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