Prime Minister Narendra Modi is learnt to have listed out jobs generation and support to the MSME sector among his top economic priorities, while also seeking inputs from economists on Thursday, on ways to fast-track India’s integration with the global value chains.
In a meeting with economists at the Niti Aayog, Modi also stressed the need to give further fillip to the start-up ecosystem, support states for rapid economic growth, sources said.
Although the interactive session was not strictly linked to the upcoming Budget, the deliberations could give indicators to the proposals in it. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman also attended the session.
The Modi government has drawn criticism from some quarters including the Opposition for the low pace of employment creation, and a crisis in the unorgansied sector.
Recently, the labour ministry issued a “rebuttal” to a recent Citibank report that said the country would struggle to create enough jobs at the current pace of economic growth, by citing government data. Reserve Bank of India too said earlier this week that employment growth rose provisionally to 6% in 2023-24 from 3.2% in the previous fiscal year, with the addition of 46.7 million jobs. More than 80 million employment opportunities were created from 2017-18 to 2021-22, translating to an annual average of over 20 million, the government stated. “Economists from different sectors gave their suggestions. Overall, the discussion was about how to promote growth with employment in different sectors,” said a source.
Some economists suggested the government continue its thrust on infrastructure development.
Seventeen economists including Shashanka Bhide, Prachi Mishra, Surjit Bhalla, Ashok Gulati, Ila Patnaik, Karthik Muralidharan, attended the meeting.