Congress hits out at Modi government over declining job growth figures

The Congress on Friday hit out at the Narendra Modi government over decline in job growth figures in key sectors in the third quarter, saying its claims do not match with ground realities and the economy is contracting.

Citing official figures, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said that eight key sectors including the transport, manufacturing, health, education, hotels and restaurants have seen a decline in the third quarter of this fiscal.

From the figures, he said, it is clear that there is a vast difference between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claims and reality.

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“Modi promises more jobs but in the third quarter of this financial year there is an increase of 69,000 jobs against an increase of 1.7 lakh jobs in the previous quarter, which is less by about one-third.

“This is, God forbid, showing a trend of contraction and let us hope that Mr Modi’s ‘jumlas’ and claims and the BJP’s self congratulatory, self-patting on the back succeeds, otherwise the Indian economy will be prejudiced and hurt irreversibly,” he said.

The third quarter figures for October to December 2016-17, Singhvi said, show that eight sectors, which form the engines of the economy, have shown half the growth as compared to the previous quarter.

“Figures show that the growth in third quarter was exactly half of the previous quarter, when only 32,000 new jobs were created against the 77,000 created in second quarter.

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“Barring manufacturing and IT, other sectors have suffered a steep decline, and the four badly hit sectors are trade, construction, hotel and restaurant and education, registering an absolute decline of 18,000 jobs,” he said.

The Congress leader pointed out that women employment witnessed the sharpest decline in this quarter, as 25,000 jobs have been lost.

“If you take total overall employment figures, it is even more distressing in the comparative previous quarter, addition of jobs is 1.69 lakh i.e. almost 1.70 lakh which of course is way below,” he pointed out.

He said one gets clear glimpses that are indications to which way the wind is blowing, not only demonetisation but the general mismanagement of the economy.

The Congress leader also said that the third quarter figure shows there is a clear increase in Current Account Deficit (CAD) despite all the claims of deficit management to USD 7.9 billion almost USD 8 billion against just over USD 7.1 billion.

“So that is almost a billion dollar increase and connected to that in marginal decrease in net FDI to USD 9.8 billion, down from previous figures,” he said.