Employment in India : President emphasises need to address unemployment

President emphasises need to address unemployment
Indo-Asian News Service (subscription) - New Delhi,India

New Delhi, Jan 25 (IANS) President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Tuesday used his customary address to the nation on the eve of Republic Day to highlight the problem of unemployment and proposed several steps to tackle it, including his pet theme - PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas).

The president, who devoted his address to the theme "Action Plan for Employment Generation", said PURA would help create employment in rural areas instead of people from rural areas having to go to towns in search of jobs.

"The only answer to retain the smile from the child to the youth is to generate employment. It represents the aspirations and anxiety of nearly 540 million youth of our nation," he said.

He noted that according to the estimates of the Planning Commission, the total number of people eligible for employment at present were approximately 400 million.

"Out of this, nine percent are unemployed which works out to around 36 million. In addition, there is a need to find value added employment for 10 percent of those employed in the agriculture sector in rural areas.

"Our attempt hence should be to find gainful employment for around 76 million people. This will add to our productivity and will ensure a sustained 10 percent GDP growth for the decade, which is an essential need for India to become a developed country before 2020," he added.

"Concerns about employment are not only for those who are fortunate enough to have school and college education. It is the same fading away of the smiles, the shattering of the dreams and the weaning away of the gleam in the eyes that we see in every cross section of youth in the country," Kalam said.

He said he had met more than 600,000 children from all parts of the country since becoming president two years ago. One of the questions they asked and were concerned about was their job prospect.

He called for equipping students with entrepreneurial and vocational skills and emphasised the need for banks to provide "hassle free loans" to rural enterprises and those with creative ideas.

"In our country we have experiences in certain government departments in the field of defence, space, nuclear, agriculture and metro railway in executing mission mode projects, which has resulted in the empowerment of the programme and removal of normal administrative delays through an empowered management structure.

"Major programmes of the country should use this mission mode management for employment generation schemes," the scientist president said.

He also called for the establishment of an e-governance grid between the state and the central governments to provide government-to-government and government- to-citizen access and extending tele-education, tele-medicine services to people in rural areas.

He said the media had an important to role to play in reaching out to the 600,000 villages in the country and be active partners in rural development.

"The national parliamentary system should become the role model for the nation; in legislative performance, in clean and progressive administration and nobility and speedy judiciary," he said.

The president referred to country's improved economic condition and urged the people to seize the emerging opportunities to transform India into a developed nation by 2020.

"A new situation is emerging in the national scene in the year 2005," the president said.

"In Indian history, very rarely we have come across a situation, all at a time, an ascending economic trajectory, continuously rising foreign exchange reserves, global recognition of technological competence...," the president said.

He also referred to the 540 million youths in India as a "dynamic positive force for national development, umbilical connectivities of 20 million people of Indian origin in various parts of the planet and the interest shown by many developed countries to invest in our engineers and scientists including the setting up of new R&D (research and development) centres.

"This is the time the nation should launch series of missions in the five areas, i.e., agriculture and food processing, education and healthcare, information and communication technology, infrastructure development and self-reliance in critical technologies leading to transforming India into a developed nation by 2020," the president said.

"Let us rededicate ourselves on this occasion of the 56th Republic Day to build our nation as a nation which provides employment to all, leading to economic prosperity and a nation of civilisational heritage with a value system."

Referring to the Dec 26 tsunami disaster he said: "While we are saddened by the wrath of the tsunami waves, we are not disheartened."

He noted that the central and state governments had reached out to those who needed help and were in the process of providing relief that will at least partially wipe out the pains caused by the tragedy.

"During this period of active relief operations, my heart was with you, but I did not make a visit because the members of the government and non-government organisations (NGOs) were deployed in large numbers in relief operations, which were in full swing.

"Now, I feel that the time has come, for me to join you, my fellow citizens, to study the process of the reconstruction of homes and bringing back normalcy," he added.