Budget 2019: The great philosopher Mark Cuban once said “Don’t take advice from people who don’t have to live with the consequences. There is limited evidence of “what works” when you take the problem-solving route to influence policy-making. Many analysts have tried to estimate the economic considerations and assessment of the likely impact of job creation or lack thereof in India. The answers vary hugely. India's fiscal deficit pegged at 8.51 lakh crore in February has already breached 4.52 percent of GDP. So, as India aspires to reach the $5 trillion mark by 2024, the government will have to address its employment issue with impetus on the three E’s – Employment, Employability, and Ease of Doing Business.

Speaking about employment, matching (connecting supply for demand) cannot happen without our fixing, in the short run, the repair (repairing supply for demand) agenda and in the long run, the prepare agenda (preparing a supply for demand). While in the previous budget we saw some emphasis on higher education, it requires more focus on vocational education and skill initiatives.

The Indian education system needs to overhaul its current curriculum and deliberate adding relevant training modules that will help the youth become more relevant and job ready. While there
are several issues impeding job creation – talent mismatch, lack of mobility and a need to align industrial growth with infrastructure, skilling, entrepreneurship, and supportive trade policy, etc. The need of the hour is tax sops to attract quality employment in education and government.

The government should consider introducing schemes on the lines of Ayushman Bharat for the education sector as well as to provide the benefit of education to the masses of the country. This will help improve the quality of education, which in turn will improve employability and have a positive bearing on the employment scenario in the country. The government should increase Apprenticeship subsidy to encourage more acceptance and implementation by forming a National Apprenticeship Corporation by merging RDAT (Regional Directorate of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship) and BOAT (Board of Apprenticeship Training) that will function as a unified entity to be able to enroll 10 million Apprentices from the current 1 million.

The fact is that India has a complex system of permits necessary to run a business –the obstruction to doing business clearly impacts jobs. If more companies find it easy to do business, they can potentially grow faster and generate more jobs. If regulations are simplified, it will encourage more investment inflows. While India ranks 77 in the Doing Business rankings of 2019 - it has jumped 65 ranks in the last four years - the work is only partly done. We now need to create a Universal Enterprise Number (UEN) to replace the 25+ current numbers that enterprises get from multiple government departments that will enable various government entities (issuing import licenses, building permits, EPFO, ESI, etc.) to provide smooth operation and simplify  administrative tasks.

The GST council has been a successful model of centre-state partnership. There is a need to create a similar council to focus on a mandate to rationalise, simplify and digitise the current 60,000 compliance rules, 3,800 filings and 600 changes done every year. The Shram Suvidha Portal must adopt the PPC – Paperless, Presenceless, Cashless framework in the interaction between employers and the government and employees and government. It should further allow the filing of a Single Online Return for multiple labour acts as against the 8-10 today. This will not only help reduce the carbon footprint but will also improve enforcement since online data can be easily cross-referenced for inconsistencies and anomalies – and all this will lead to ease of doing business in India.

In this context, the government should show some resolve in creating an inclusive road map for the creation of quality jobs across sectors through economic, social and labour policy intervention, improve female labour force participation and introduce reforms to attract enterprises and help medium and small scale industries which are major job providers. We believe that this government can end its tenure on a high note, by decentralising and devolving more power to the states and enabling affirmative actions in its 2019 budget – which will pave the way for economic growth
and prosperity.

(Author of the article is Rituparna Chakraborty, President, Indian Staffing Federation)

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