Congress leader P Chidambaram has come down heavily on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) following a statement made by India's Chief Economic Advisor on unemployment.
Chidambaram has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government to "vacate the seat" if they cannot solve the unemployment issue in the country.
In a post on X, former finance minister Chidambaram said, "The most startling confession has been made by the Chief Economic Adviser. He said that the 'Government cannot solve the problem of unemployment'. Shocking."
"If that is the official stand of the BJP government, we must boldly tell the BJP 'vacate your seat'," he said.
The Congress has a concrete plan to tackle the issue of unemployment and it will be revealed in its manifesto, Chidambaram added..
On Tuesday, CEA Anantha Nageswaran said that it was incorrect to think that government intervention could solve every social and economic problem. The CEA argued that a diagnosis was easier than a solution when government concerned problems like unemployment.
Unemployment crisis: 83% of jobless Indians are youth, says International Labour Organisation Report
Speaking at the unveiling of the "India Employment Report 2024: Youth Employment, Education and Skills” co-authored by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Institute for Human Development (IHD), the CEA said, "In the normal world, it is the commercial sector who needs to do the hiring," but added several actions have been taken by the government to spur job creation, such as skill development efforts and the National Education Policy of 2020.
Meanwhile, the ILO report has projected that India's youth wopuld continue to grapple with soaring unemployment rates. As per the report, 83% of jobless Indians are youth. According to the study, educated youths have experienced higher levels of joblessness during COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, wages have remained stagnant or declined, with real wages for regular workers and self-employed individuals showing a negative trend after 2019.
However, last month, as per the data by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI), the unemployment rate in urban areas fell to 6.5% in the three months to December, down from 7.2% in the same period of 2022.
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