Montek slams govt body for faulty employment data

India's leading economist and planning commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Wednesday slammed the National Sample Survey Organisation report for showing fall of both employment and unemployment rates in India.

Updated on: Jun 30, 2011, 24:19:59 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India's leading economist and planning commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Wednesday slammed the National Sample Survey Organisation report for showing fall of both employment and unemployment rates in India.

The NSSO in the report 'employment and unemployment in India' said the employment of the persons in labour force had fallen from 42 % in 2004-05 to 39.2 % in 2009-10 and unemployment rate had fallen from 2.3 % to 2 % in the same period.

It had meant that despite more than average 8 % economic growth during these give years not enough jobs were being created and the government's economic policy was not inclusive.

Ahluwalia pulled up NSSO for the self contradictory figures saying that the data collection methodology was faulty. He was furious at the NSSO officials for failing to issue a clarificatory note.

Minutes later, ministry of programme implementation secretary TC Ananth admitted that the data was confusing and the employment rate had in fact increased. "Once you break up labour force participation for women, children and subsidiary status it becomes clear employment has increased," he said.

Ananth also said that the unemployment rate was a problem as fails to take into account people who may be self employed because they don't have jobs.

The NSSO data shows consistent fall in self-employment, an indicator of that more jobs were being created because of economic growth. And, the probably reason is doubling of wages in five year period between 2005 and 2010.

The wages in urban areas was Rs 364 per day as compared to Rs 183 in 2005 whereas in rural areas it was Rs 231 as compared to Rs 112 in 2005.

As a result, about 51 % of Indians were self-employed as compared to 57 % in 2005 and 55 % in 1994. The self-employment rate was as high as 60.5 % in 1983.

Programme implementation minister, however, said the major reason for the dissatisfaction of field officers in the department was that even amounts spent on official assignment were not released until a receipt is submitted afterward.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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