India preparing national employment policy: Kharge

Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said on Tuesday that India is preparing a National Employment Policy to provide a framework towards achieving the goal of providing decent employment for all men and women in the labour force.

Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said on Tuesday that India is preparing a National Employment Policy to provide a framework towards achieving the goal of providing decent employment for all men and women in the labour force.

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"India is in the process of formulating a NEP... it will provide a holistic framework towards achieving the goal of remunerative and decent employment for all men and women in the labour force in a sustainable manner," he said.

The minister was addressing the 99th Session of the International Labour Conference at Geneva, which is being attended by 170 countries.

Kharge said though job growth has reappeared, global unemployment is still at record levels.

"We are all aware that there is no sustainable recovery without job recovery. The test we face today is to secure a strong, sustainable and balanced growth that leads to social stability provided by decent work for all," he added.

Pointing out that countries responded differently to the global downturn, Kharge said India was among the first few countries to implement a broad-based counter-cyclical policy package to respond to the negative fallout of the global economic slowdown.

"India responded to the challenge of minimising the impact of the crisis and shifted its policy stance from monetary tightening to monetary easing. Our policy response was aimed at enhancing the availability of credit at lower cost for financing economic activities," the minister added.

He said India agreed with ILO that the size of the deficits and the level of debt will have to be brought down in an orderly manner.

"Governments are in agreement that exit strategies from stimulus packages need to be timed to ensure their link to an upswing in demand and growth. India believes that exit policies of various countries should be broadly coordinated, but not necessarily synchronised as each country has a different situation," he added.