In the season of demonetisation and polls, the new hype of jobs could clinch it for BJP if the opposition does not explode the myth of the Gujarat Model and how it epitomises ‘jobless growth’
Gujarat Loan Mela Hype: Instead of 65,000 beneficiaries, the number of jobs provided based on information given by the authorities in 23 districts, totals only to 51,587. Out of that 11,172 are apprentices (30.4%). i.e. the actual figure is 40,415 and not even 51,587. But, the names of only 32,372 were provided to activist-writers Rohit Prajapati and Trupti Shah.
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Not able to strike a cord in the politically critical state of Uttar Pradesh, prime minister Modi and his team, have begun using the BJP party’s ministers, legislators to promote Centre’s job melas in UP.
The new tack began after the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting on Tuesday, November 29 and the Union Skill Development Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy was rushed off to Lucknow. His objective: to oversee the successful conduct of the BJP government’s biggest job placement drive in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Sold and re-sold as ‘Kutch Melas’, and the kind in Gujarat which effectively contractualised low paid jobs and were even found not to actually deliver when Modi was chief minister of the state (2001-2014), the same hyped up –but questionable on delivery—tactic will now be used in UP.
The “Rozgar Mela” to be held in Lucknow is the first in a series of 19 such mega job fests to be held over the next two months, when UP will be in the midst of hectic electioneering.“Basically, we are facilitating jobs for youngsters. They may or may not be part of our training processes under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY). The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has tied up with industry bodies to invite companies in search of human resources and got them together with young people aspiring for jobs. We started in Varanasi on a small scale but it turned out to be such a success that the Prime Minister encouraged us to organise more such events,” Rudy told BusinessLine.
Although the Minister was quick to point out that this is “work in progress” for the entire country, the focus clearly is on UP with job fests being planned from Mirzapur, Lucknow, Varanasi, Azamgarh, Basti, Gonda and Amethi in eastern UP and Awadh region to Bareilly, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Noida in western UP.
Union Ministers have been lined up to distribute job certificates to aspiring youth. All 19 job fests are scheduled in December and January, when campaigning will pick up in UP. The Modi favourite, former MHRD minister and now Textiles Minister Smriti Irani is expected to attend a job fair in Amethi, from where she contested against Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha polls.
And while Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be in Agra for a similar function, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will visit Ghaziabad, Education Minister Prakash Javdekar Saharanpur and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Moradabad for the job fest. Other ministers involved in the drive are Manoj Sinha, Radha Mohan Singh, Thawar Chand Gehlot, M Venkaiah Naidu and JP Nadda among others.
The efforts are part of the BJP’s initiative to supply political thrust to the Centre’s welfare schemes so that direct benefits are not just delivered, they are also seen to be delivered. So, not only are the ministers being asked to attend these job fests, local MPs and senior party functionaries have been asked to join in.
At the Lucknow Rozgar Mela for instance, a prominent attendee at the job fest was a party MLC and a National Secretary in the BJP. The local MP and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is away in Havana, but his absence was duly explained to the crowd by Rudy.
Will the scheme will earn goodwill for the BJP in the coming months?
It all depends on how the opposition is able to communicate the failures of similar tactics in Gujarat!
Almost 10,000 youth attended the fair on Monday and Tuesday, and about 3,340 youngsters were shortlisted by companies in agriculture, automotive, beauty and wellness, construction, electronics, healthcare and other sectors. The job offer letters were distributed by Rudy at the site. “You can derive political meaning in what we are doing, but this is work in progress for us. We will be conducting similar exercises across the country,” the Minister said.
Experience of Gujarat Model of ‘Loan Melas’
According to a detailed study authored by Rohit Prajapati and the late Trupti Shah the Gujarat government data shows this:
The Gujarat Government claims that it has generated vast numbers of jobs. This is the first thing we wanted to investigate. Activists of the Gujarat based Jyoti Karmachari Mandal, an independent militant trade union, Amrish Brahmbhatt and Rohit Prajapati, in collaboration with the Documentation and Study Centre for Action chose a close scrutiny of Government of Gujarat’s latest “Employment Effort”, the “Swami Vivekanand Youth Employment Week” in February/March 2012 as an instance. In response to their RTI application, the Gujarat Government told us that spread over months, 489 melas were organised, and 65,000 youth were given employment through the ‘Rojgar Melas’.
In April 2012, the writer-activists filed a detailed RTI application to the Chief Minister's Office of Gujarat (CMO) and Principal Secretary, Labour and Employment department, Gujarat seeking details on 18 counts.
Instead of getting collated data from the CMO or the Principal Secretary, Gujarat Labour and Employment Department, which would have given a state-wide comprehensive picture, predicatably, they started getting fragmented replies from each of the ‘District Employment and Training Department' across the state.
The Employment and Training Departments in the districts were not in sync with each other, as some provided statistics in their replies of the district employment or data to some of the queries, while some did not, without giving any satisfactory reason.
Instead of 65,000 beneficiaries, the number of jobs provided based on information given by the authorities in 23 districts, totals only to 51,587. Out of that 11,172 are apprentices (30.4%). i.e. the actual figure is 40,415 and not even 51,587. But, the names of only 32,372 were provided to us.
The writer-activists had sought specific information on what post, what pay and which industry and if each of them provided 'employment' in this “Rozgar Mela” would be entitled to benefits under labour and other statutory laws.
Again, they received no categorical reply about entitlement of benefits, saying the information would be best available with the concern employers. While some gave details about post employed, the employer’s name, none gave details about the pay and other legal benefits they will get.
Collating all the information, they did however, get some important facts.
- Nobody had been given an ‘Appointment Letter’. What they got was a piece of paper called ‘Employment letter’, which is bad in law.
- Secondly, the total amount spent for these melas came to Rs 1, 87, 70,000 according to the Department of Employment and Training. This excluded the money spent on the participation of the ministers – including the Chief Minister – in these melas. The Department of Employment and Training categorically told us that it had not spent money for their participation. This money therefore came from “other sources”. Were these black or white sources, from crony capitalists benefitting from the government in ‘other’ways?
- Thus, we get a picture that some 32,000 to 40,000 (at best) got some sort of unspecified jobs, while another 11,000 odd got apprenticeships. In Ahmedabad, 4,370 were recruited but all as apprentices.
- The Apprentice Act, 1961[3] under which the employers of certain factories have to recruit certain number of apprentice in their factories clearly states that they are not employees of the factories and therefore they are provided with no legal benefits but only stipend of Rs.1,490 for the 1st year, 1,700 for the 2nd year, and 1,970 for the 3rd year. In the other cases, where people did get actual jobs, those were mostly temporary in nature.
- Thus, the ‘employment’ given ranged from apprenticeship to private sector employment for temporary jobs, with very few being skilled workers. The state was using its finances and officers to procure low paid workers for private capital, for example the GIDCs.
This portion leaves out the fraudulent information given by the state, not because the fraud is forgiven, but because that is not central to the present arguments. It is however important to note that many names have been put more than once to pump up the figures, and also that people who got jobs on their own and were already in job have found their names listed as beneficiaries of Mr. Modi.
- What is vital, however, is that most of the workers the writer-activists could actually contact and interview stated they have low wages, high working hours (in some cases even 12 hours per day). Most of them do not get any other legal benefits like Provident Fund or leave except weekly leave.
- In Anand district, 2,464 candidates were provided jobs by the Employment and Training Department. The list of Anand District shows that 621 (25.21%) graduate/post graduate/MA-B.Ed/PGDCA were given job as School Coordinator. They were promised the salary of Rs 4,500-5,000/month but they received only Rs. 3,100-3,500/month. This is less than the statutory minimum wage! With some of them, an 11 years contract was signed but they were relieved after 10-11 months.
- The central picture that emerges from the foregoing is, the rhetoric of Mr. Modi is belied by the reality that his government is driving down state expenses and also the expenses on wages by private employers, using force and fraud.
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