Rajiv Kumar, who will take charge as the next vice-chairman of the NITI Aayog, following the resignation of Columbia University academic Arvind Panagariya, has mooted a two-year voluntary national social service scheme for the youth.
The economist, who believes job creation should be the government’s sole priority, has said this will be the most effective means to ‘encourage social cohesion’ and prevent young unemployed persons from falling prey to extremists and other disruptive social forces.
“This would have to be managed by our Armed Forces, as was the case with the National Cadet Corps and have national integration as the principal objectives. The actual deployment can also contribute to building some assets in the rural sector and address rising rural distress by taking up agricultural extension work,” Mr. Kumar has suggested in a book Modi and his Challenges.
Course correction
Released last August, Mr. Kumar had termed the book a modest effort to provide mid-term feedback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ‘hopefully in time for a course correction’. Mr. Kumar had termed the inability of a large majority of the PM’s Cabinet colleagues to ‘break out of the inherited business model’ and their ready acceptance of routine bureaucratic responses as the ‘principal weakness’ of Mr. Modi’s stint in Delhi.
“Mr. Modi must realise the limitations of his Gandhinagar experience and take remedial measures before it is too late. India’s demand deficiency is a result of a virtual collapse of external demand and marked slackening of rural domestic demand… An answer will not be found by relying exclusively on the bureaucracy,” he noted.
Mr. Kumar said reforms of public sector banks outlined under the Indradhanush programme fall considerably short of well-considered recommendations such as diluting government equity in them to 50%.