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58 per cent more employment under Modi govt: Smriti Irani
The Union minister for women and child development distributed 354 appointment letters to eligible candidates at a job fair held in Lucknow on June 13
Unveiling Centre’s plans to focus on “Misson Employment” in a big way ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Union minister Smriti Irani said on Tuesday that the Modi government ensured 58 per cent more employment than previous governments.
“Now, employment opportunities are being created in both private and government sectors,” the Union minister for women and child development said after distributing 354 recruitment letters to eligible candidates at a job fair organised at Indira Gandhi Pratishthan in Lucknow on Tuesday.
The opposition has often cited numbers to claim that unemployment has grown manifold under the BJP regime and Smriti Irani deftly chose to blunt the opposition pitch.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, whose government has also been holding recruitment drives, has also been citing numbers from the Centre For Monitoring Indian Economy to point out how unemployment has come down from 18 per cent (2016) to 2.9 per cent in April 2022.
Irani was among the four Union ministers who were in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday to attend job fairs organised in Lucknow, Moradabad, Varanasi and Gorakhpur districts.
These four job fairs were part of 43 similar fairs organised across the country by the Centre, the second such exercise in as many months after the one in May (and sixth overall) when job fairs were organised at 45 places nationally, including five in Uttar Pradesh.
“So far, more than 8.80 lakh youth have been employed. Post employment, growth will happen automatically if people remain alert to the developments that are happening all around them,” she added.
“Remember one employed person can change the fate of many others. Today, even as more employment avenues are being created, many youths are also opting to become entrepreneurs,” the minister said.
Irani also had a word of caution for bank employees in loan section. “I would want the employees in the loan section to not treat loan applications from the people as just another piece of paper. For the middle class, a loan application being cleared or not is akin to a dream being fulfilled,” she said.
Similar job fairs were attended by other Union ministers, including minister for heavy industries Mahendra Nath Pandey (Varanasi), Union MoS for commerce and industry Anupriya Patel (Gorakhpur) and Union MoS for development of North Eastern Region BL Verma (Moradabad).
