Chandigarh: Days after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi cited its report to slam Haryana for recording India’s highest unemployment rate, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE) findings have become a fodder of political bickering between the ruling and opposition parties.
The CMIE data for the unemployment rate in December 2022 shows Haryana at the top position with an unemployment rate of 37.4 per cent against national unemployment rate of 8.3 per cent.
“In the 21st century, Haryana is the champion in unemployment, you have left everyone behind,” Rahul said last week to hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government when his Bharat Jodo Yatra reached Khattar’s home constituency Karnal.
The CM, however, defended the state saying that the unemployment rate is just 6 per cent.
Addressing a press conference in Chandigarh on Monday, Khattar questioned the methodology used by the CMIE. Describing the CMIE unemployment figures as baseless and beyond facts, the Haryana chief minister said that “these figures are based on a very small survey sample”.
The CMIE report placed Haryana on the top of the unemployment table at 37.4 per cent in the month of December, followed by Rajasthan at 28.5 per cent, Delhi 20.8 per cent, Bihar 19.1 per cent and Jharkhand 18 per cent.
CMIE managing director and chief executive officer Mahesh Vyas stood by the findings of the report, saying that the sample size was much larger than the official Periodic Labour Force Survey.
“The Hon’ble Chief Minister is entitled to his views and CMIE respects that. We may like to clarify that the CMIE sample in Haryana is 5,874 households compared to the official Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) sample which is of 2,608 households. The CMIE estimates are based on a household survey like the PLFS survey,” Vyas told ThePrint.
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‘Data suppression a dangerous trend’
On January 4, Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda came down heavily on the Khattar government for its ‘failure to take adequate steps to arrest the increasing unemployment in Haryana’.
Citing the CMIE’s unemployment report for the month of December, Hooda said, “Months change and years change, but that doesn’t provide any relief to the people as Haryana continues to be number one in unemployment in the country. This (unemployment rate) is 4.5 times more than the national average. Last month (November), Haryana had 30.6 per cent unemployment rate. It seems that Haryana is breaking its own record every time in terms of unemployment.”
Former Dean of Social Sciences at Kurukshetra University, Madan Mohan Goel said that no data collection methodology for measuring unemployment is perfect and 100 per cent reliable.
“The data on employment in the organised sector is more reliable than that in the unorganised sector (accounting for some 90 per cent of total employment in India). But that has been the case all the time,” Goel added.
Commenting on Khattar’s criticism of the CMIE report, he said that just because the data are turning out to be unpalatable for a government, its suppression is a dangerous trend.
He suggested the state government should go for rural industrialisation for reducing underemployment and disguised unemployment. He said that not just industries, but industries having linkages with agriculture should be encouraged.
It should organise the youth into Self Help Groups (SHG) through a process of social mobilisation, provide training for capacity building and make provision of income-generating assets through a mix of bank credit and government subsidies to achieve the objective of self-employment, Goel asserted.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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