Employment growth vital for ensuring development process: Mukherjee

NEW DELHI - Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said that growth in employment opportunities is vital for ensuring an inclusive development process.

In his customary pre-budget meeting with trade unions’ group here, Mukherjee said: “To achieve that end, the Central Government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy focusing on rapid growth for reducing poverty and creating employment opportunities, improving access to essential services in health and education especially for the poor, and empowerment through education and skill development.”

He further said that one of the biggest challenge before our nation today is to find the correct balance between the need for economic growth and the opportunities that need to be created for bringing the more disadvantaged and vulnerable section of people into the mainstream of the development process.

“We also have to address the growing aspirations of young India. We need to have sustained higher economic growth with inclusive development,” he added.

He said that schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA), Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, Bharat Nirman, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission among others launched by the Government in the last few years have shown encouraging results in meeting some of the requirements of the disadvantaged sections of the society.

He said that we have been making significant increase in our budgetary allocations for anti-poverty programmes, but these have to support the desired outcomes.

“We have to make a quantum improvement in the implementation of public welfare and development programmes,” he added.

Mukherjee further said that on the employment front, the quarterly reports released by the Labour Bureau for July-September 2010 show a continuing upward trend.

“At the sectoral level, textile sector, IT / BPO industry, automobile industry and metal industry show an encouraging growth in employment,” he added.

Mukherjee later invited the suggestions from the representatives of different Trade Union Groups for addressing the short and medium term concerns in our labour markets and in the rest of the economy.

This was the third meeting in the series of pre-Budget consultations held by Finance Minister with the stakeholders of different sectors. (ANI)