Mera Bharat Mahaan

The new Government must deliver a high growth and inclusive agenda—the time has come to take stock and chart an inclusive way forward

The elections are done and many surprises have been sprung, particularly for those who thought that politics could sweep aside the real demands of equality and livelihoods for the poor-yet-wise-people of our intelligent nation. Soon a new Government will get to work, and the hopes are high that a new era of equitable growth will be seen even as we continue to build on the excellent work in physical and digital structure done in the last five years. The time has come to take stock and chart an inclusive way forward. Let’s understand the issues.

I asked the new God GenAI to tell me what ails job creation in the country? Why is that so many of our graduates are unemployed and handouts are substituting livelihoods for millions? Never short of words, AI generated a thousand words in ten seconds and the headlines were the failure of the farm sector to absorb additional labour (note that even the recent growth figures suggest that agricultural growth is languishing), and the growth of the services sector rather than job creating manufacturing during the post Covid economic recovery and slowdown in private investment. With the new focus on manufacturing and the open arms welcome to investors from all over the world in semiconductors, automotive, pharma etc., there is hope that the malaise can be addressed. As AI concludes, it has been a combination of factors including recovery dynamics, sector-specific challenges and structural issues, that have contributed to the large-scale unemployment in the country and it will take a holistic approach including sectoral reforms, supportive policies and skill development to embark on a new phase of job creating growth.

Moving beyond the AI response to factors that lurk beneath the surface, as many of us working in skills and livelihoods have seen over decades, there are three fundamental issues that must be addressed. The first is, are we trying to create formal employment instead of happily asking labour contractors to supply the majority of manufacturing sector manpower? A trend which is being followed today by large financial services and B2C services firms and will soon be adopted by the high employment IT and BPM services companies as well. The second of course is, are we aligning the aspirations and the skilling of youth to the real future opportunities that will come through the growth trajectory in our country? Finally, are we as a nation truly committed to prosperity and inclusion for all, even as we chart out the next hundred-day, five year and twenty-five-year agenda?

"Hopes are high that a new era of equitable growth will be seen even as we continue to build on the excellent work in physical and digital structure done in the five years"

The first is not easy to solve, given the significant difference between wages for contractor employees and those in formal jobs with large manufacturing and services companies, but as my board colleague and senior industry leader, Pradeep Bhargav argues passionately, it is imperative that leaders of organisations who hire large numbers from contractors should insist that basic amenities and statutory benefits must be provided to these folks. Working for a supplier organisation is not degrading, but the plight of our countrymen who have to suffer because of nonadherence to good employment practices cannot be shown a blind eye by industry captains.

The second area of matching aspirations to skills to jobs, is an area which many organisations, including our own entities GTT Solutions, GTT Foundation and Lighthouse Communities Foundation, have been addressing with rewarding outcomes, but there is still a long way to go given the volume of jobs to be created in the country for the tens of millions of job seekers who enter the market every year. We work with different categories of candidates at GTT with youth in colleges who aspire to rub shoulders in big name organisations with their more fortune big city brethren and at our thirty-eight lighthouses with youth from slums in ten cities who dare to dream of and achieve a modicum of prosperity for themselves and their families.

In both cases, we use the social sector term “agency building” to ensure that confidence is built in each individual along with basic job skills like language and digital literacy. The powerful six stage model used in the lighthouses starts with providing a safe space where youth can dare to dream and share their dream with their guides and peers. It moves on to providing a plethora of job opportunities to give them the power to choose, counseling on where their aptitude could match their ambition, helping them to acquire the necessary skills, finding them an employment or entrepreneurship opportunity and finally being with them to alleviate their fear and ensure they stay on the chosen path.

It is a fact that the top ten percent, including most readers of this column, are seeing wealth creation and happiness and the trickle-down effects are benefiting the next thirty or forty percent. But we can ignore the lower half of the population at our own peril. Let us address the third point, a collective agenda to make “Viksit Bharat”, a reality for all of us. The new Government must deliver a high growth and inclusive agenda and to twist slightly the words of our founding Prime Minister, "let us in the next five years, redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure but very substantially.”