Chennai: The creation of jobs is the top priority in the new Congress economic policy, followed by the development of health and education infrastructure along with the democratization of the two sectors and removal of growing inequality in the country.
The new Congress economic policy, aimed to present the party’s vision ahead of the 2024 national elections, was articulated by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram while addressing a party event in Chennai on Saturday where the veteran questioned the Centre’s claims of high economic growth.
“If a Congress or a Congress-led government comes to power (at the Centre), its top focus would be on jobs. Thousands of jobs are just waiting to be discovered in sectors like agriculture and agri-processing, technicians, paramedics, doctors, nurses, teachers, lecturers,” Chidambaram said at an event hosted by the All- India Professional Congress, the party platform for professionals.
“These are decent jobs, which give you a regular income to sustain your family over a longer period and give you social security,” said Chidambaram. Taking a dig at the Centre, he said, “We promise, we will not turn our backs and tell you that frying pakoras is also a job.”
Expressing concern about the low labor force participation rate and high unemployment rate, he wondered why the Centre was not filling up the 8.7 lakh vacancies in the central government, over 1 lakh vacancies in the defense sector, and a large number of vacancies in the banks and public sector units.
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Listing both health and education sectors as the party’s next priority, Chidambaram said the party would boost infrastructure in the two areas as well as work for democratizing them. “Both these sectors are over-centralized. We need to democratize them. We need to put these sectors in the state list and move them from the concurrent list. The Centre can have a role in framing broad policy but the implementation must be left to the states depending upon their local conditions and needs,” he said.
“For instance, one policy will not be suitable for the health sector in Bihar, which lacks basic facilities, and Kerala, where things are much better,” he said. According to the former finance minister, Congress would ensure 12 years of schooling for every child. “Today, we have a situation where a student of class 7 cannot properly read a textbook of class 3 and struggles to write a paragraph on his own,” he said.
The Congress veteran expressed concern over the growing inequality in the country saying that “inequality is growing around the world after the pandemic years but inequality is growing the fastest in India. “We need a net transfer of wealth from the affluent sections to the poor. It is not a Communist utopia but we need to lift the bottom 10 percent of the society rather than celebrate the wealth of the top 10 percent,” said Chidambaram.
Noting that it was time to reset the economic policies, 30 years after the 1991 reforms ushered by then former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao, the Congress leader said though the country had benefited post-liberalization and achieved much, it was still plagued by the problems like poverty, hunger, and huge regional imbalances.
“We are still a poor country. As many as 25 percent of Indians do not even own a bicycle. The GDP has been stagnant for the past two years, mainly due to the pandemic and the government’s policies. Growth declined in the last four quarters. As many as 57 percent of women are anemic, which means they are malnourished. This in turn affects our children. Our human resources are educationally and physically weak. We are at 101/140 nations on the hunger index. We have mountains of grains yet there is massive poverty and hunger,” said Chidambaram.
The former finance minister said that the country’s often cited comparison with China was wrong as there was a huge difference in the size of the two economies. “The Chinese economy is worth $16.7 Trillion while we are worth $3 Trillion. Even if we are growing at a rate faster than China, China is covering a longer distance than India because of the difference in the size of the two economies,” said Chidambaram.
“Even at a rate slower than India, China was adding value worth the size of the Indian economy every year,” he said. Addressing the concerns of the micro, small and medium enterprises, the former finance minister said the Congress would help the segment by providing them credit and a space to grow.
“The micro must grow to become small, the small must grow to become medium and the medium must grow to become big. Otherwise, they will become outdated with time as new technology will take over. If everyone keeps growing and new micro-units come up, it is fine. We will ensure they get credit and space to grow. We will be ready to take a hit in the form of 10 percent of the credit converting into NPAs,” he said. The Congress will scrap the faulty Goods and Services Tax and will bring in a single, low-rate tax for the goods and services, Chidambaram added.
