India needs to revamp its approach, to fully utilise its less tapped potential of demographic dividend – Analyse.
Refer - The Hindu
IAS Parliament 7 years
KEY POINTS
· There are primarily three demographic groups in urgent need of jobs, which include –
a) a growing number of better educated youth.
b) uneducated agricultural workers who wish to leave distressed agricultural sector.
c) young women, who are increasingly getting educated than before.
· Unfortunately, India had not been very positive in absorbing this job seeking population due to various factors.
Causes
· The pattern of growth was largely driven by the services sector.
· Manufacturing has more potential to drive productivity and create more jobs but, manufacturing has not been the leading sector in driving growth.
· Under Inverted duty structure, import duty on finished goods is low compared to the import duty on raw materials used in production.
· Resultantly, domestic manufacturing becomes uncompetitive as against imported finished goods.
· Excessive imports, have undermined the Indian manufacturing industries, thereby reducing job opportunities.
· Low investment.
· Low credit off-take.
· Low capacity utilisation in industry.
· Low agricultural growth.
Solutions
· Industrial policy preparation by the DIPP should be made consistent with the trade policy in order to address issues such as inverted duty structure.
· Proper implementation of the National Manufacturing Policy, 2011.
· Special packages of sector specific needs are required for labour-intensive industries such as, food processing, leather and footwear, textiles, apparel and garments etc., to create more jobs.
· Cluster development should be enhanced to support job creation in MSMEs.
· Urban development should be aligned with manufacturing clusters to create jobs.
· E.g. AMRUT programme on infrastructure improvement can focus on towns which have clusters of unorganised sector economic activities.
· This can considerably absorb the non-agricultural job seekers.
· A co-ordination between the Urban Development and MSME Ministries is necessary to ensure this.
· Skilling close to clusters, which is where the jobs are, rather than standalone vocational training providers, is likely to show better results.
· Public investments in health, education, police and judiciary can create many government jobs.
