Rahul Gandhi offers liberal dose of jobs & sops

NEW DELHI: Congress has promised to set up a new ministry of industry, services and employment, fill up four lakh vacancies in the government, public sector undertakings and judiciary and work with state governments to create 10 lakh new “seva mitra” positions as part of its strategy to create jobs.
“In the last five years, there has been a dramatic rise in unemployment.Today, unemployment is touching a 45-year high of 6.1% according to the government’s own figures. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy puts the number at 7.2%. At the end of this February, 3.1 crore people were actively looking for jobs,” Congress said in its manifesto and promised a string of measures to boost employment, which is one of the key election promises of the party.
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The issue of jobs has come under the election spotlight as the opposition and the government have exchanged barbs over employment. The opposition has accused the government of withholding data on jobs while the Centre has said that an expanding economy has created a huge number of jobs.
Congress said it would launch two major programmes to be implemented through gram sabhas and urban local bodies that will create 1 crore jobs and this will be through repair and restoration of water bodies and regeneration of wasteland.
As a condition for devolution of funds to the healthcare and education sectors and to panchayats and municipalities, the manifesto said it would request state governments to fill all vacancies, estimated at 20 lakh, in the two sectors and in local bodies.
The party also promised regulatory forbearance for micro and small enterprises and said they would be exempt from all applicable laws and regulations (except the Minimum Wages Act and tax laws) for a period of three years from April 1, 2019 or, in the case of new businesses, the date of commencement of business.
Congress said it would reward export oriented industries through tax rebates and incentives and promised an adequately capitalised tourism development bank to provide low-cost, longterm funds for investment in tourism-related businesses.