Unemployment a major problem, says Nitin Gadkari

Nagpur: Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday while addr-essing a youth empowerment summit in the city stated that the major problem in the country is unemployment.

Talking about employment generation, Mr Gad-kari said, “You address this problem of unemployment, not everyone can get jobs. Because there is a difference between emp-loyment and jobs. There are limitations to jobs and creation of emp-loyment is the main part of the financial policy of any government.” He further added, “There is a need to think about how to create employment opportunities in rural and urban areas of the country.”

According to him, the Maharashtra government had managed to create jobs in Vidarbha, particularly Nagpur in the last four years, and cited Multi-modal Intern-ational Cargo Hub and Airport (MIHAN), the Butibori MIDC area and Nagpur metro rail as examples. He said, “Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and I both from Nagpur and had decided to provide employment to at least 50,000 youths in Vidarbha. Furthermore, about 27,000 youths have already got employment opportunities in various ways and the figure will reach beyond 50,000 by the next year.”

He stressed on the points that electricity, water and roads were required for industries that could generate employment and that the state government was working towards it. He claimed that the government is working towards building `1 lakh crore worth of roads in the Vidarbha region. Mr Gadkari informed that the Union government would be initiating irrigation works estimated at `1 lakh crore in Maharashtra.

He claimed that about `9.5 lakh crore loans have been distributed under Mudra Yojana initiated by the Prime Minister. Besides, he stated that `11 lakh crore loan has been distributed in the agriculture sector. He quoted Mahatma Gandhi and said, “We want maximum production with involvement of maximum number of persons.”