Selling pakodas is not employment

Answering a question on employment during an interview with Zee TV telecast on Jan 20, 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked, "If someone opens a 'pakoda' shop in front of your office, takes home Rs 200 at the end of the day, does that not count at employment?"

• The fact that the prime minister actually celebrates this kind of ’employment’ as a major success of his Mudra scheme is even more worrisome.
• Earning a meagre Rs 200 a day may come as solace to an unemployed person, the government must acknowledge that it only reflects under-employment and these earnings are just not enough to live life with dignity.
• Niti Aayog noted that “not unemployment, but severe under-employment is the main problem facing the country” and that “what is needed is the creation of high-productivity, high-wage jobs”. Prime Minister himself heads Niti Aayog.
• 90% of the Mudra scheme loans to over 10 crore beneficiaries in last three years were under the ‘Shishu’ category averaging Rs 43,000. With such a low degree of investment provided to nearly nine crore Indians, the employment opportunities can hardly be of high value.
• Banks reported a 47% increase in non-performing education loans between March 2015 and March 2017 and the bad loans have doubled. The defaults in education loans are a direct result of poor availability of good jobs. 
• In equating the success of low-value Mudra loan disbursement with generation of employment, the prime minister has sought to shift the goalpost on employment creation.
• The failure of the flagship programmes i.e. Start Up India, Stand Up India and Make in India schemes has forced the prime minister to yet again shift the goal post. The objective and success of the government is no more in addressing the concerns of an aspiring India, but to provide meagre income enough to earn ‘do waqt ki roti’. For an individual who is unemployed due to any reason, be it demonetisation or global distress or lack of adequate manufacturing and agricultural growth, any income that sustains his daily meals may be a matter of solace. But the prime minister of India cannot and should not take pride in it.

Under-employment is accompanied with the economic costs of social and family distress, health problems, impact on education etc – the head of the government cannot be oblivious to this. His vision has to accommodate the economic costs of under-employment. He does not have the luxury of looking at the economy only from the view point of a common unemployed citizen. That’s why the success of Mudra does not automatically translate into success for India’s economy and is why earning 200 rupees a day by selling pakodas cannot be considered a happy state of affairs.

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