We the citizens of India have unsparingly been addressed by the media and political commentators on the failure of Modi government on the matters of jobs and farmers. Congress president Rahul Gandhi begins and ends his day on these two issues as a matter of faith. Sitaram Yechury sheds crocodile tears; all the regional satraps looking to come under one banner—Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Tejaswi Yadav, Sharad Pawar, Chandrababu Naidu, Arvind Kejriwal etc—say rehearsed lines; and what to say of our pathetic English mainstream media and online Leftists’ portals which are only extension of this corrupt ecosystem.
So, if jobs and farmers are issues as big as we are browbeaten into believing, shouldn’t Narendra Modi’s statement on jobs and farmers in Parliament on Thursday deserved to be published in full and debated in columns and editorials? Why our newspapers, politicians and political analysts are looking the other way?
It’s thus important that we pay attention to at least this stretch of Modi’s speech (1.10mins—1.26 mins) and be educated on the issues of jobs and farmers. Contrast it with the propaganda of the ecosystem—of the past as well as in coming weeks—to be better informed.
JOBS
Modi began by stating that 85 per cent of jobs in India are in unorganized sector and 10-15 per cent in organized sector.
He pointed out the spurt in numbers in provident funds and national pension scheme (1.80 crores in PF; 1.20 crores in NPS) and questioned if all this has happened without employment generation? Around 6.5 lakhs new professionals have been added in income-tax bracket. All these doctors, CAs are not creating further jobs?
Modi was more forceful on the unorganized sector’s employment generation. He pointed out transport as the mega sector of employment generation. Latest figures show 36 lakh commercial vehicles, 1.5 crore passenger vehicles and 27 lakhs new autos have been sold. It has helped create 1.5 crores new opportunities.
Are taxi aggregrator App services (Ola, Uber etc) not creating jobs?
Highways, Airports, Railway stations are being upgraded and modernized. Is all this happening without jobs?
Hotels have increased by 50 per cent—all this without jobs?
Mudra loans have been disbursed to 4.5 crore people—are they not generating employment?
Crores of new homes are being built. All this without jobs?
2 lakh new service centres in rural sectors, each one of whom employs at least 3-5 people, are in operation. All without jobs?
FARMERS
This is where Modi really stung hard. He pointed out that Congress plays the trick of announcing loan-waivers as a 10-year policy to fool people and garner votes.
In Modi’s words, in 2009 the farmers’ loan amounted to Rs 6 lakh crores. The Congress waived off only Rs 52,000 crores. As per the CAG report, 35 lakh people who benefitted didn’t deserve it. “Those were the days when too many scams were swirling in the air and nobody paid much attention to this CAG report,” said Modi.
It’s no secret that small farmers didn’t have access to loans from the banks and thus took it from moneylenders. Since they didn’t take loans from banks, the loan-waivers didn’t help them.
“As against this, we are providing Rs 6,000 to 12 crore small farmers which counted every year for 10 years would amount to Rs 7.5 lakh crores of direct monetary help. Contrast this with your Rs 52,000 crore loan-waiver and that too to top, and not small farmers,” Modi rebutted.
Modi also came down hard on former Prime Minister Devi Gowda whose party JD(S) in alliance with Congress is running Karnataka. “Gowdaji tells himself to be a farm leader. So far (in nine months), according to your own data, 43 lakhs were to benefit from the loan-waiver scheme—only 60,000 have benefitted so far…In Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh even letters (of loan waivers) are not being framed.”
“You compare (measures for farmers) your budget with our budget; your MSP with our MSP. Today a farmer can sell his stuff online; there are 99 irrigation schemes; 22000 gramin haats (markets)—the same benefit is also for fish-farmers and animal-farmers.
“The interim budget provides Rs 3,000 monthly support to unorganized labour. Where is Communist Party (not acknowledging it).”
