Former Niti Aayog VC bats for job data; ‘Budget admits unemployment is problem’

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Ex-Niti Aayog VC says Budget ends debate of employment not being problem

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi, July 25: Former vice chairman of the Niti Aayog, Rajiv Kumar, has said that the Budget admits that unemployment is a problem in the country. Kumar also called for a regularly updated unemployment data.

“The latest budget correctly and thankfully identifies employment as a major challenge,” said Kumar in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. Kumar had succeeded former Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya.

“The Chief Economic Advisor pointed out in the Economic Survey that at least 7.8 million jobs have to be generated every year for the coming decades,” underscored Kumar.

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It’s worth mentioning that Panagariya had promised to come out with an employment data. The Niti Aayog officials have consistently been rejecting the claims made in the private sector data compiler CMIE, saying that there is no credible data available on unemployment.

But Kumar has now come out in support of the CMIE data on employment. He has made a strong case for a regularly updated database of employment in the country.

“The budget will hopefully lead to a recognition of non-government data sources like CMIE and initiate a dialogue between all domestic data sources and the Ministry of Statistics, Niti Aayog, and others,” added the former vice chairman of the Niti Aayog.

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It’s worth stating that Kumar is the first existing or former top official of the Niti Aayog who has given credibility to the CMIE data on employment, while also asking for a regularly database on jobs in the country. The Niti Aayog is yet to release an employment data that was promised by Panagariya during his tenure.

“To address the employment challenge Nirmala Sitharaman, the finance minister, introduced five schemes – three as employment linked incentive schemes and two additional ones for skilling. This must now put an end to all efforts by economists, business leaders and political spokespersons to argue that unemployment is not a problem and that job generation has been adequate,” added Kumar.

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He further stressed that the “budget brings out the need for rigorously preparing a database on the employment/unemployment condition on which all of us can converge and which is updated regularly and in a timely manner to support effective policy making”.

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