PM Modi with his newly appointed Cabinet ministers.Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday ordered the formation of two new Cabinet committees that will focus on employment and economic growth, respectively, news agency ANI reported. The committees are constituted under PM Modi’s chairmanship.
The Cabinet Committee on Employment and Skill Development constitutes of 10 members including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Ramesh Pokhriyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Mahendra Nath Pandey, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, and Hardeep Singh Puri.
The latest development comes close on the heels of a report by the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) that showed India’s unemployment rate at a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18. The report was released on the day Modi took charge as the Prime Minister for the second consecutive term.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth comprises of five members including Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Nitin Gadkari, and Piyush Goyal.
Economy has become a major issue for the government with the GDP rate dropping to 5.8 per cent in the last quarter of 2018-19, as per an NSSO report. The GDP growth was slowest since 2014-15 as the previous low was 6.4 per cent in 2013-14.
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As per the PLFS, which covered 4.3 lakh people across 1.02 lakh households, the unemployment rate among urban workforce was 7.8 per cent, while the unemployment rate for the rural workforce was 5.3 per cent.
The unemployment rate of males on all-India basis was 6.2 per cent, while it was 5.7 per cent in case of females.
It also showed that the unemployment rate for males was higher at 7.1 per cent in urban areas compared to 5.8 per cent in rural areas. Similarly, the unemployment rate for women was also higher in urban areas at 10.8 per cent compared to 3.8 per cent in rural areas.
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Data on GDP released a week ago showed the growth rate for January-March 2019 slipping to 5.8 per cent compared to 8.1 per cent in the corresponding period last year.
This is the lowest growth rate in 20 quarters and puts India behind China after almost two years.
For the full year 2018-19, the economy is estimated to have slowed down to 6.8 per cent, lower than the original estimate of 7 per cent and 7.2 per cent recorded in 2017-18.
