BJP MP says Manmohan's jobless growth charge is factually wrong

Bengaluru: BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Monday said former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's charge of jobless growth is factually wrong as the NDA government had so far spent Rs 10 lakh crore on the infrastructure sector, which has been creating downstream jobs as confirmed by EPFO data.

He said Singh was perhaps referring to the leaked draft survey conducted by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) to buttress his claims on high jobless growth rate.

"Manmohan Singh's charge of jobless growth is factually wrong as he has perhaps referred to NSSO data, which simply is a survey, not real data like Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO)," Chandrasekhar said in a statement.

"During the last five years of Modi government public spending in infra sector has been to the tune of Rs 10 lakh crore in roads, ports and railways. All of this is construction, creating downstream jobs," he added.

It is election season so expectedly some people will use survey data in a context that suits them which is the case here with Singh, he said. Indian economy is in a far stronger and better place today than it was in 2014 when Singh demitted office, Chandrasekhar added. Singh, in his convocation address at the Delhi School of Management, had said jobless growth has slipped into job-loss growth, which, together with rural indebtedness and urban chaos, has made the growing number of aspirational youths restless.

"Let us be clear-our economy is in a far stronger and better place today than it was in 2014 when Dr Singh demitted office. The damaged economy he left behind has been rebuilt slowly and surely and we are on a path of sustainably high growth," he said.

The NSSO survey did not capture all the important measures that the budget 2018 did to revitalise the MSMEs and informal sector, Chandrasekhar said. There is no real job data in government historically because of the dominance of informal and unorganised sector in overall jobs, he added.