E-Paper
Guest column: Unemployable youngsters make demographic dividend a liability
The Economic Survey, 2024, states in no uncertain terms what the concerned intelligentsia of the nation had been harping on. We have failed to reap the much-touted demographic dividend that was to make India@75 shine.
In most worldwide emerging markets, ones that aim to lead the GDP growth indices globally, nearly 70% of the workforce is employed and earning. In India, more than half of her 95-crore young population is “an unpaid helper” in a family enterprise and thus performing at grossly in-optimal levels. Consider this as well, only 32.7% of our women, way better multi-taskers than men, are in productive employment.
The Economic Survey, 2024, states in no uncertain terms what the concerned intelligentsia of the nation had been harping on. We have failed to reap the much-touted demographic dividend that was to make India@75 shine. Brushing facts under the carpet may cover the truth but accentuates the problem, and that this has happened thanks to over a decade of myopia, is evident, much as it is mind-boggling.
This boils down to the fact that one in two graduates is unemployable. Conversely, only 51.25% of the country’s educated youth are fit enough to find jobs, and that too, if they do. When the youngest nation of the world does not equip its biggest resource to take on productive enterprise, not only is it a pity, but also prepares a keg of dynamite that requires an infinitesimal spark of frustration to blow society into smithereens. The new National Education Policy (NEP) may address some of these symptoms over the long term, however, the procrastinating polity has ensured that a generational opportunity has indeed been lost, and the keg is filled to the brim.
Knowing that the educational infrastructure was grossly imperfect, churning up multitudes, who are being left to fend for themselves without the tools of trade, including the hyperbolic skill development action, is indeed saddening. We could at least have trained them in life skills. Their aptitudes, best analysed in school, but by hindsight tested in colleges, could have led to their counselling into trades that would have kept them afloat and productive.
Skill, remunerate and employ
The cat is indeed amid the pigeons with the economic survey now. An effort to address the issue in the Nirmala Sitharaman seventh budget is only patchwork, and certainly not a remedy to gross injustice over time. Giving the youth a month’s wages when passing out is but a dole. Low-cost loans, similarly, are good for those who have been provided with the required skills or the mindsets of entrepreneurship. Setting a fiscal target over five years also means the impact shall be assessed at the end of this period. So, hang in their kids, the powers-that-be have at least embraced your impending reality, and begun a process.
Instead of dangling a few ideas after a decade in absolute power, a host of innovative schemes and out-of-the-box much-needed solutions capable of handling massive outflow of youth should have been in flow ages ago. What were we thinking? Industry has been shouting from rooftops for decades that it’s getting square pegs for round holes, and now they are being roped in to help. The government must set its house in order, and take on the responsibility to skill, remunerate and employ this excessive workforce, while it mends its institutional academic citadels and skewed policies.
Agnipath, the way forward
At the advent of the Narendra Modi era, the writer sent an open letter to the Prime Minister, urging him to start a conscription programme for the unemployed youth of India, perhaps in a more palatable form. The Centre did start the Agnipath scheme, perhaps one of the most sensible initiatives to address the demographic surge in India. A disciplined and abled youth, trained under military protocol, and labelled an Agniveer at the end of a four-year term, will continue to be an asset to society, and a reserve for India’s future defence dynamic. By ensuring job opportunities upon their release from army service, the naysayers to the scheme can be suitably silenced. That only 46,000 young Indians are being selected at present perhaps signifies that it is a test module, which can and should be expanded manifold.
The youth is the largest single denominator of a diverse India, one that needs fruitful pursuit and productive livelihoods. This is ideal for states such as Punjab that have traditionally committed the maximum “yodhas” to the battlefields for India. The exodus of youth overseas, rampant drug abuse, present curbs on immigration overseas, young getting usurped unwillingly by East European mafias, should have opened some eyes. The hardy Punjabi without a job can be explosive, and a trained youth an asset. History has proved this to be true, and so shall the future.
Multifold approach needed
The issue is complex indeed. In just the urban segment, 78.5 lakh jobs are needed every year. Let’s not forget that 42.5% of the population of India depending on farm livelihoods has become restive, and the young are no longer attached to the soil. The solutions lie in a multifold approach that resonates with a holistic endgame. The government must muster its NREGAs, its infrastructure push, and all its agencies to create jobs.
Investment climates will need to nourish private sector investment in both manufacturing and services.
The education system must also have a placement orientation. And lastly, close coordination between academia and industry to produce round pegs for round holes is imperative. This can become a guarantee for employment or entrepreneurship for all down the line.
The cascading effect of an enabled, trained, and disciplined India down to the grassroots, has perhaps not yet been quantified or even envisioned. In this lies hope on the horizon for the unemployed by India@100.
The writer is an Amritsar-based freelance contributor. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at gunbirsingh@gmail.com
