According to official figures released in the assembly on Tuesday, as many as 5,37,562 educated and semi-educated persons continue to be without jobs in the state, while around seven lakh youths got employment, mostly in the private sector.

With 2,576 youths, Narmada district provided most government jobs to the educated and semi-educated youths, it was informed.

As against this, not a single person got a public sector job in Navsari, Panchmahals and Kheda districts, the government said.

In Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar districts, a total of 411 and 1,460 youths, respectively, secured government jobs.

Statistical Outline of Gujarat, 2016, published by the state government, shows that as many as 23,806 factories were closed down in two years from 2014-15 to 2015-16, each employing an average of 52.81 workers.

This rendered over 12.57 lakh workers unemployed, besides nearly seven lakh educated unemployed youth registered with the State Employment Bureau.

The total number of people looking for jobs in the state was estimated to be 19.57 lakh workers as on 2016.

Officials disclosed that on an average, 10,000 to 12,000 factories — mostly in the small scale and unorganised tiny sector — have downed shutters during the last five years.

According to government reports, 11,873 factories were closed down in 2014-15 and 11,933 in 2015-16.

The latest numbers, post-demonetisation and implementation of Goods and Services Tax, have not been published so far.

Industry sources said that even by conservative estimates, at least 12 lakh workers lost their jobs due to the “twin blows” of demonetisation and GST in key sectors like textiles, auto spares, ceramics and engineering goods.

In all, if one adds up available government data and industry estimates, the unemployment figure is a staggering 32 lakh.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

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Interview with Kiran Chandra
May 19, 2017
Interviewed by Pranjal , a Newsclick Production

Recent media reports have showcased  massive job cuts in the IT sector. Here, in this interview, Kiran Chandra from Forum for IT Professionals, speaks to  Newsclick on the  issue. Automation is one of the chief reasons for this retrenchment. 

Global leaders in the industry, especially in the U.S, have started adopting a protectionist policy for their countries. As a result, they are also altering the way jobs are outsourced to India.

The third important reason for this is the policy paralysis which has affected India over the past three decades. The government has been depending on the US economy for job opportunities rather than building these within India .

The post The Real Reasons Why Jobs are Being Lost in the IT Sector appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Modi’s supporters in media and outside argued that by befriending Saudi, Modi had effectively neutralised the influence of India’s arch-rival, Pakistan. However, the latest data shows that 50% Saudi jobs meant for Indians shifted to Pakistan and Bangladesh under Modi as India’s prime minister.

The Narendra Modi government had come to power on the promise of creating two crore jobs early but half of its tenure has passed and the unemployment rate is continuously increasing. This has been admitted in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh.
 

Backwards are the largest sufferers. In reply to a question during Question Hour, Singh had said that overall unemployment was rising, but the rate was highest among the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Ironically, the government not only failed in creating jobs back at home but it indirectly shifted more than 50% gulf jobs meant for Indian workers to Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The complication of newly introduced eMigration system caused havoc and Saudi employers in turn started shifting the job opportunities towards neighbouring Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The unnecessary formalities in visa possessing created utmost delay in e-migration clearance for non-skilled and semi-skilled workers who go to gulf countries in search of jobs.

The government data shows that there are more than 50% decrease in number of migrant workers who go to Saudi Arabia for jobs since the Modi government came to power.
 

In 2013, there were 3,53,565 Indians who went on job visa to Saudi Arabia while in 2016 only 65,356 could go there for jobs.

In 2013, there were only 12,654 Bangladeshis who got employment in the Gulg country but in 2016 their number rose to 1,43,913. While in 2013 the number of Pakistanis who got employment in Saudi Arabia were 6,36,721, this number increased to 7,71,867 in 2016.

It is to be noted that the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), the Government of India, rolled out its eMigration Project to all the POE offices perhaps without taking its adverse fallouts and implications into consideration.

As a result, over half a million job opportunities from India have already been lost to other neighboring nations like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka where there is no such complicated formalities like eMigrate System or Minimum Referral Wages.

Furthermore, if this policy does not change, there are fears that India will lose to the tune of $30 billion annually in the form of foreign remittance which is one of the major sources of strengthening our vibrating economy.

India gets the highest amount of remittances in the world at roughly $70 billion, almost three times the amount of FDI that comes into the country.

By far, the largest amount comes from the Gulf countries – Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – which sent a combined $32.7 billion, almost half of all remittances received. Below is the foreign remittances data as compiled by the World Bank.

It resulted into steep decline in remittances from Saudi Arabia which is the largest employer of Indian workers.

During his UAE visit in August 2015, PM Modi had promised to the Gulf employers that the complicacy of eMigration system will be resolved in 30 days, but that is yet to happen.

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter
 

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Over eight years, he remained semi-literate, but he learned the fine art of creating new shoe designs from photos, making sure the shoes would fit, last and be comfortable. But his skills did not change his status as a casual worker with no medical or other benefits and no prospect of pension. As Hussain came of age working with cow hides, Kanpur’s once booming leather economy began to shrink, pushed to the edge by falling global demand, environmental regulations and contemporary cow politics.
 
Three years ago, with no prospects of a better life or a pay hike, Hussain and five friends from his mohalla (neighbourhood) quit the only job they knew. He drives an autorickshaw today; the others run roadside snack stalls.
 
In the 1990s, Kanpur’s leather industry employed a million workers (there are no official data), according to IndiaSpend’s inquiries with the government and leather-industry representatives. With 176 of 400 leather tanning units shutting over 10 years, according to a joint secretary–who requested anonymity since he is not authorised to talk to the media–in UP’s industries department, that number has halved.
 
But earnings from the auto were irregular, from Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 a month. So, Hussain is about to begin a job designing and fixing ‘uppers’ (the upper part of a shoe that contains the tongue) at a shoe factory in NOIDA, located in UP but an extension of the metropolitan region of Delhi, India’s richest province, by per capita income.
 
“They are giving me Rs 12,000 a month but the working conditions are good,” he said, describing how he would work in an air conditioned workplace, be given a managerial task, monitoring the supply line, and stand a better chance to get married.
 
“Kab tak auto chalaunga. Long-term mein thoda standard job chahiye na? (How long will I drive an auto to make a living? In the long term, I need a job of some standard, don’t I?)” said Hussain.
 
Hussain’s story is common enough in UP, a state with about 70 million unemployed young people, aged 15 to 34, comprising a fourth of jobless Indians. UP’s median age is is 23, the least in India, and jobs–as the findings of a poll commissioned by IndiaSpend reported on February 6, 2017–are this election’s leading issue.
 
The decline of UP’s industrial powerhouse offer clues to its future
 
To understand why UP–a state with 138 million voters–cannot offer gainful employment to young people like Hussain, we looked for answers in the decline of Kanpur’s leading industry, leather and leather products.
 
Kanpur’s financial wellbeing is important to UP. The district that houses the city and its industrial areas contributed Rs 19,000 crore–or 4%–to the state’s gross domestic product of Rs 4.6 lakh crore ($ 75 million) in 2013-14, according to UP government data. This is the fourth-highest contribution by a single district–the differences between the top four are slender–along with Agra, Lucknow and Gautam Buddha Nagar (which includes NOIDA).
 
With 2% of UP’s population, Kanpur employs 6% of UP’s urban workforce, according to the sixth economic census, 2012-13. Only NOIDA generates more jobs–it employs about 10% of UP’s urban working population.
 
UP has 16% of India’s working youth (15-34), and 20% of its child population (5-14), which will join the job market over the next decade. About 45% of voters are below 35 years of age, according to data estimate from UP Chief Electoral Officer’s website, highest proportion in India, alongwith Bihar.
 
The future for these children is not good. Like Hussain, nine in every 100 students in UP leave school before completing class IV, the highest primary school dropout rate among India’s large states, according to 2015-16 district information system of education data. It has one teacher per 39 school students, as IndiaSpend reported on January 5, the worst in India, and the lowest enrolment rate among large states.
 
To the ranks of 70 million semi-educated youth, this means, will be added more semi-educated youth. And, if Kanpur’s economy is any indication, even casual, semi-industrial jobs once available to people like Hussain may no longer exist.
 
How Kanpur’s leather industry lost its shine
 
Called ‘Cawnpore’ during the Raj, Kanpur was once among India’s leading cities. It ran its first electric tram in 1907, the same year as what was once Bombay, and seven years after trams were first introduced in Kolkata.
 
The first textile company—Elgin Mills—was started here, five years after the revolt of 1857, paving way for nine textile companies before the start of the 20th century, making Kanpur northern India’s biggest industrial city.
 
Post-independence, most large Kanpur industries hit a growth block. The textile mills went into decline, after nationalisation in the 1970s. The other big Kanpur brand, Lal Imli blankets, set up by British India Corporation in 1876, also died a slow death post-nationalisation. It was leather that led the revival of Kanpur’s manufacturing sector in the 1980s.
 
The district is still the leading producer of leather and leather goods—predominantly footwear—with a quarter (268) of India’s footwear factories. Footwear exports form 40% of India’s leather exports and a third of India’s leather (and leather-product) exports go from Kanpur. Multiple regions in Tamil Nadu together contribute to 34% of these exports.
 
But Kanpur’s leather industry, as we said, is now in such a state of distress that large-scale migration is now evident, as the city’s population growth-rate drops.
 

Figures in %; Note: GBNagar = Gautam Buddha Nagar, includes NOIDA
Source: Census of India
 
UP’s population grew 20% over the decade ended 2011, and while other large and growing UP cities, such as Lucknow, Agra and Meerut stayed close to this number, Kanpur’s growth rate fell to 9%, after seven decades of a 20% increase. Noida grew at over 40%, indicating rapid urbanisation and development.
 
Fall in global demand hit Kanpur the hardest
 
Global demand for leather, mainly from advanced economies, fell after 2014. This can be traced to the slowing of European economies and China. Leather exports from India fell by 4% in 2015-16 after growing over six years, but exports from Kanpur declined 11% over the same period.
 
Data obtained from Central Regional Office of Council of Leather Exports, Kanpur
 
Kanpur suffered especially in the footwear components and finished leather goods category. Saddlery–the leather gear used in horse-riding–is exported almost exclusively from Kanpur and its demand did not suffer, but did stagnate.
 
“Leather and products demand from the European Union has contracted in the past couple of years,” said Ali Ahmed, regional director (central region, Kanpur) of Council of Leather Exports.
 
Industry struggles to comply with green rules
 
Environmental regulations imposed on tanneries have crimped industry finances. The establishment of National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2010 and its rigorous monitoring of pollution levels led to 128 of Kanpur’s 400 tanneries shutting. There are also at least 500 cases against other leather units in the principal bench of the NGT, as it records archive indicates.
 
“The tanning industry is known to be very polluting, especially through effluents high in organic and inorganic dissolved and suspended solids content,” noted this 2007 report. “A significant part of the chemical used in the leather processing is not actually absorbed in the process but is discharged into the environment.”  
 
Cow politics now impacts the flow of raw material
 
Before 2014, about 1,000 cattle were brought to Kanpur’s largest abbatoir. Last year, after three years of political heat and emboldened Hindu vigilantism, this dropped to 500 and post-notebandi–as the scrapping of 86% of bank notes, by value, is termed colloquially–the number fell to less than 100, industry representatives told IndiaSpend on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue. The numbers are now rising, slowly.
 
“Cattle, which are now become a liability to farmers, run about 10 industries,” said Taj Alam, vice president of Uttar Pradesh Leather Industries Association. These industries include pharmaceuticals where gelatin prepared from hoofs, horns and the insides of hides are used, soaps where animal fat is used, upholstery where hair is used.
 
No place for the small entrepreneur
 
Worst impacted by the slowdown are small-scale leather shoemakers.
 
“Leather now represents the expensive segment in fashion merchandise,” said Mohammed Raees, a footwear maker in Begumganj, Kanpur’s traditional small-scale footwear hub. “Cheaper footwear and ladies’ purses can be produced using newly developed polymers, which people can afford and prefer as well.”
 
Begumganj and adjoining Chamanganj housed at least 1,000 household leather factories, according to local residents. These small businessmen had to adapt with changing market preferences. “Indians now demand cheaper stuff for regular use,” said Ahmed. “We had to change too.”
 
Guddu Mohammad, 50, a shoe worker, and his four associates work as skilled artisans in the only surviving household shoe making factory in Begumganj. “There were thousands of such shops in my childhood in Kanpur,” he recalled. “The large-industry revolution, which swallowed small shoemakers like us, could not accommodate all of us skilled workers.”
 
(Waghmare is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

The post The Slow Death of Kanpur’s Leather Economy And UP’s Job Crisis appeared first on SabrangIndia.

प्रसिद्ध अमेरिकी अर्थशास्‍त्री स्‍टीव एच हैंके ने पीएम मोदी के नोटबंदी की कड़ी आलोचना की है। हैंके ने कहा है कि नोटबंदी ‘लूजर्स’ (हारने वालों) के लिए है और प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी को भी अंदाजा नहीं है कि देश किस दिशा में आगे बढ़ रहा है। मेरीलैंड की जॉन्‍स हॉपकिंस यूनिवर्सिटी में पढ़ाने वाले हैंके ने ट्वीट कर कहा, ”नोटबंदी हारने वालों के लिए है और यह शुरुआत से ही गलत तरीके से लागू किया गया। कोई नहीं, यहां तक कि मोदी को भी नहीं पता है कि भारत किस दिशा में जा रहा है।”
 
वाशिंगटन के केटो इंस्‍टीट्यूट में ट्रबल्‍ड करंसी प्रोजेक्‍ट के निदेशक और वरिष्‍ठ फेलो, हैंके ने पहले कहा था कि भारत में मोदी की नोटबंदी को अपनाने के लिए जरूरी बुनियादी ढांचा नहीं है… उन्‍हें यह बात पता होनी चाहिए थी। प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने 8 नवंबर, 2016 को राष्‍ट्र के नाम संबोधन में 500 और 1000 रुपए के नोट तत्‍काल प्रभाव से बंद कर दिए थे। पीएम ने इस फैसले को काले धन, जाली मुद्रा और भ्रष्‍टाचार पर कड़ी चोट बताया था।
 
नोटबंदी के फैसले पर आर्थिक जगत की कई हस्तियों ने हैरानी जताई थी। चीन के अखबार ग्‍लोबल टाइम्‍स ने अपने संपादकीय में लिखा था कि मोदी द्वारा 500 और 1,000 रुपए के नोट बंद करने की घोषणा ‘बेघर लोगों को एक महीने के समय में मंगल पर घर देने जैसे वादे’ जैसी थी। 
 
अखबार ने लिखा था, ”दुर्भाग्‍य से, वास्‍तविकता यह है कि नोटबंदी ने भारतीय अर्थव्‍यवथा को कम से कम एक दशक पीछे ढकेल दिया है, जिससे नौकरियां कम हो रही हैं। इसके अलावा, इस फैसले से बुजुर्ग नागरिकों को गंभीर मानसिक और शारीरिक कष्‍ट झेलना पड़ा जिन्‍होंने बैंक की कतारों में घंटों बिताए, उनमें से कुछ की मौत भी हो गई।”

Courtesy: National Dastak
 

The post ‘मोदी की नोटबंदी ने देश को एक दशक पीछे ढकेल दिया, घट रही हैं नौकरियां appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Kashmir Singh (53, extreme left) and his son Daljeet (30, extreme right), a 10th-class pass, harvest peas in Pindiyan village, 40 km from the Pakistani border. In once-prosperous Punjab–proving ground of the green revolution–drugs, unemployment and a slowing economy have caused widespread anger and despair.
 
That extreme assessment of India’s 11th richest state was made by a drug kingpin in a dark, controversial film called Udta Punjab (Flying Punjab). The statistical reality, as IndiaSpend reported on January, 31, 2017, is that Punjab–ground zero of a green revolution that ended India’s image as a land beset by starvation–has failed to grow its economy or prepare its young people for the future. Employment and economic growth lag the national average.
 
The reality in Punjab–as IndiaSpend found after travelling through the districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran, two rural and border districts and Ludhiana, an industrial centre–echoed the film and statistical assessment. The desire to leave their villages for better prospects elsewhere was common, and people expressed anger at the rise of drugs, the decline of jobs, and the failure of aspirations. The overriding demand: Change.   
 
***
 
Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ludhiana: It was cold and overcast at noon, when the clouds parted to allow in weak sunlight and much-needed warmth. We were in the village of Heir, 4 km south of Amritsar airport, where departures to Tashkent, Doha, Dubai and Singapore reflect the flight of the Punjabi from his native land. Along the broken road to the main village square, a group of men, young and middle-aged, sat around talking.
 
What, we asked, were the crucial issues for the assembly election of February 4, 2017? They answered in unison: Unemployment. “Look at us,” said Amrinder Singh, 34, science graduate, father of two. “It is the middle of the day, and all of us are sitting here whiling our time. There is nothing for us to do here.”  
 
After his graduation, Amrinder–well built, smartly dressed in jeans and sneakers–did find a job at a private company. Dissatisfied with the Rs 15,000 salary, he resigned. Amrinder wanted, as many young Punjabis do, a government job. He applied, unsuccessfully, to be a physical-education teacher and police sub-inspector. “To get selected, one must pay bribe, sometimes upto Rs 20 lakh,” said Singh. “Even then, there is no guarantee that you will get the job.”
 

Amrinder Singh (34, centre in black shirt) wanted, as many young Punjabis do, a government job. He applied, unsuccessfully, to be a physical-education teacher and police sub-inspector. Singh has been unemployed for eight years, waiting for a government job.
 
Singh’s family does own farm land, but as families expand and farm sizes fall–from 3.9 hectares to 3.7 hectares over five years from 2005-06 to 2010-11, according to 2010-11 Agricultural Census data, the latest available–farming isn’t an option.
 
“Already, one brother is looking after the farm, what will I do?” asked Singh. Has he considered a  business of his own? “Only those who have political backing can start a business,” Singh claimed.  
 
The end result is that Singh has been unemployed for eight years, waiting for that government job.
 
“It’s not just me,” he argued. “Most of the young men in the village suffer the same fate. That’s why most of us are addicted to alcohol, tobacco or drugs. Three people from our village died of drug overdose in the last two-and-a-half months.”
 
Punjab’s drug problem is a political issue, with one part of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine accusing Congress president Rahul Gandhi–who said one in 10 Punjabi youth were now addicts–of “defaming brave Punjabis”. In January 2017, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal was quoted as saying: “We are trying to save the youth of our country. The image of Punjab should not be tarnished… the Congress called us drug addicts and Rahul Gandhi tarnished the image of Punjabis by calling them so.”
 
Punjab’s deep and spiralling drug problem
 
There are nearly 230,000 opioid dependent and 860,000 opioid users in Punjab, according to the 2015 Punjab Opioid Dependence Survey, conducted by researchers from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Society of Promotion of Youth and Masses, a non-profit working towards prevention of drug abuse.
 
The survey of 3,620 drug-dependent individuals found that 99% of opioid dependents are male, 54% are married, and 55% are addicted to heroin, a synthetic opioid drug that causes feeling of euphoria and, at Rs 400 a gram, is one of the costliest drugs in the market. While 80% of addicts tried to quit, no more than 35% received professional help. Opioid dependents spent Rs 1,400 per day on drugs or an estimated Rs 7,575 crore statewide every year.
 
“Drug addiction is more a symptom than a disease,” said Ravinder Singh Sandhu, retired sociology professor from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. “Unfortunately, people still treat it as a personal and not a sociological problem.” Sandhu’s 2009 sociological study of 600 drug addicts from urban and rural Punjab found that 73.5% were aged between 16 and 35. Those who were illiterate (40.6%) and with education up to fifth grade (22.3%) were prone to drug addiction in rural areas, while those with a 10th-grade education (44.6%), or more, were susceptible to drugs in urban areas. One in four respondents was unemployed.
 

Ravinder Singh Sandhu, a retired sociology professor from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, said people still treat drug addiction as a personal and not a sociological problem. Sandhu’s 2009 sociological study of 600 drug addicts from urban and rural Punjab found that 73.5% were aged between 16 and 35, and one in four respondents was unemployed.
 
“Drug addiction is directly linked with poverty and not with prosperity, as is the belief,” said Sandhu. He implicated the quality of education in Punjab as a reason for the dissonance between what young people aspire to be and what they become.
 
For instance, while literacy and the general education budget rose over a year to 2016-17, spending on primary education and incentives to retain students in school were cut, leading to a doubling in the primary school dropout rate in one year, we reported on January 31, 2017.
 
Thousands of semi-educated youth over the years were left unprepared for a job market that has jobs only for the best or, as Amrinder Singh in Heir village contended, for the well-connected. This failure of aspiration adds to the stress that fuels drug use, said Sandhu.
 
How a post-graduate in English, football player became drug addicts
 
Harinder (name changed) is 28, a post-graduate in English who could not find a job for four years. He and his friends first tried heroin, he said, because they were “bored”. He was hooked to the drug and soon found he needed a fix first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
 
Harinder’s family was well-off, and money was never a problem. He did think of quitting, but it did not work. “If you try to quit on your own, the whole system collapses, and the body aches,” he told IndiaSpend at the 250-bed Swami Vivekanand Government Drug Deaddiction and Rehabilitation Centre (one of five such centres in Punjab), where he had checked himself in.
 
For Kuljeet (name changed), 35–graduate, national-level football player and heroin addict–admitting himself was, as he put it, “the last chance to save my life”. He was once a security officer in Attari and started using opium largely out of curiosity. Kuljeet said he did not know of “side effects”, and when it became scarce, he switched to easily available heroin, which he dissolved in water and injected. He lost his job, and sold his wife’s jewellery. She filed for divorce and his six-year-old son is now in a boarding school.
 
It’s been five days for Kuljeet at the Centre, and he hoped he could get his life back–what’s left of it.
 
The role of personal morality and larger economic failures in the drug problem
 
A psychiatrist (requesting anonymity since the election code of conduct was in force and he isn’t authorised to speak to the media) treating drug addicts at the civil hospital of Tarn Taran, 25 km south of Amritsar city, said he saw up to eight new addicts and up to 30 follow-up cases every day:  80% of the addiction is related to heroin.
 
“When I started in 2008, most cases were of pharmaceutical drugs, such as morphine, lomotil, tramadol, but now heroin is more common,” he said, identifying the stigma involved as the greatest challenge in treatment. “Most people still see drug addiction as a moral failure,” he said. “In fact, it’s a chronic relapsing psychiatric illness with biological, social and psychological causes.”
 
There are larger economic failures that drive the drug problem in the border districts, which are especially vulnerable to drugs and report higher rates of addiction than inland areas.   
 
“If the border districts were offered better health, education and employment facilities, they would not be tempted to smuggle drugs,” said J S Oberoi,  a deputy inspector general with the Border Security Force, which guards the border with Pakistan. Many farmers with holdings between two and three acres, he said, work as drug-runners for as little as Rs 10,000 per run.  
 
Caught between farms and city, dreams and reality, many Punjabis at a dead end
 
It is the pea-harvesting season and Kashmir Singh, 53, his family, and 30 other labourers are bending low to pick peas. We are in Amritsar’s Pindiyan village, 50 km from the industrial town of Jalandhar and 40 km from the Pakistani border.
 
“Usually, we have less than five months of work every year,” said Kashmir. During other months, he tries to get work as a casual worker in other villages or the nearby town. Since he earns less than Rs 60,000 a year and has no land, he is eligible for a government-issued “blue card”, the other requirement for which, in rural areas, is that you have less than 2.5 acres of land–it is also given to those with less than 100 sq. yards of land in urban areas.
 
But Kashmir hasn’t got his blue card, more than a year after applying.
 
Blue card holders also get atta or wheat at Rs 2 per kg and dal or pulses at Rs 30 per kg. He hasn’t heard of the 100 days of employment guaranteed by the 12-year-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Act. “We don’t have any such card,” he said.
 
Others around Kashmir knew of MGNREGA but alleged that most cards were held by village panchayat office workers, who siphoned off government payments, a common-enough problem with the world’s largest rural jobs programme, IndiaSpend reported in February 2016.
 
Kashmir’s son, Daljeet, 30, works alongside his wife and children. He is a 10th-class pass, and so is his wife. They would prefer working in a factory, but most factories around the area closed down some years ago. He has considered migrating to a city, but there isn’t land they can sell to buy a house and renting is expensive. So, they are stuck in Pindiyan, with no job opportunities and no way of realising their hopes of a better life for their children.  
 
 
The owner of the land Kashmir and Daljeet work is as unhappy as they are. Harbhajan Singh owns the two acres that he farms for wheat and peas. Over the last two months, he has lost Rs 35,000, as the rural economy temporarily collapsed after notebandi, as the November 8, 2016, withdrawal of 86% of India’s currency, by value, is called (you can read our special section here).
 
“Peas are sold at less than Rs 10 per kg, which does not even cover the cost of fertilisers, seeds and labour,” said Harbhajan. It is a good thing we don’t depend only on farming, added Harbhajan, who was a soldier for 18 years and worked as a security guard at a bank for 24 years and earns pension from both. One son is in the army, and the other other looks after the farm.
 

Harbhajan Singh was a soldier for 18 years and worked as a security guard at a bank for 24 years. He owns the two acres that he farms for wheat and peas. Over the last two months, he has lost Rs 35,000, as the rural economy temporarily collapsed after demonetisation.
 
“We are tired of both the Congress and the (Shiromani) Akali Dal,” said Harbhajan. “We will give chance to a new party this time.” Around his house, we notice posters and the flag of the Aam Aadmi Party, which now rules Delhi and hopes to gain ground or come to power in Punjab.
 
Industries decline, young people leave and anger wells up against the Badals
 
By now, Ranjeet Singh’s story sounds familiar. At 37, he runs a shop in Tarn Taran’s Darda village, which he cannot leave because his mother has cancer. Others like him have left, said Ranjeet, to seek opportunities in other states.
 
More than half the village–without healthcare or a ground for children to play–is scheduled caste, so they do not own any land. “Since there are no factories and farm work, we are forced to migrate,” said Ranjeet Singh, a portly man dressed smartly in grey pants, vest, pink shirt and red turban.
 
He introduced us to his neighbour, Devinder Singh, 22, an arts graduate with a diploma in electrical, industrial work. He is the most educated person in his family, but he had not found a job in two years. He unsuccessfully applied for a linesman’s job, another with the railways. Devinder was just back from Gujarat, where he was a factory worker for a month. His father has cancer, and his sister, a 12-class pass, is also unemployed.
 
The unemployment rate among its youth is 16.6% while the Indian average is 10.2%, as IndiaSpend reported. Punjab’s rural youth joblessness rate in 2015-16 was 16.5%; more than 7 percentage points higher than rural India’s 9.2%.
 
Punjab’s industries, services and overall economy grew 5.9% in 2015-16, but that lagged the national average of 7.6%. In 2016-17, with India’s growth is likely to fall below 7%, according to the latest government estimate, released on January 31, 2017, Punjab’s growth will recede further.
 
This slowdown was revealed at an industrial estate close to Darda, where we saw more than 15 shuttered factories, some overgrown with vegetation. Some villagers said these factories began to shut seven years ago for reasons they did not know or remember.
 
As many as 18,770 factories closed between 2007 and 2014, when the Shiromani Akali Dal was in power, the Hindustan Times reported on February 3, 2014, quoting right-to-information data obtained by the Punjab Pradesh Congress Samiti (Punjab state congress committee): 8,053 factories closed in Amritsar, and no new industries were started in Tarn Taran, Moga, Rupar and Mansa districts, according to the data.
 
We found much anger directed at the Badals, the family that controls the ruling Akali Dal faction.
 
“The Badals own most businesses in the state, so either you give them profits or they will squeeze your business,” alleged our driver Gurpreet Kahlon. “They were too busy making money for themselves to think of people’s good.” Kahlon has no further hopes from Punjab. He has worked in Qatar for three years and now plans to migrate to Australia, where his brother is a driver.
 
The Shiromani Akali Dal, as this Scroll investigation revealed on March 25, 2016, appears to have links to a diverse set of industries, from stone-crushing, sand mining, cable distribution, liquor distribution and bus transport. Two years ago, the Tribune also reported how the Badals had majority stakes in transport business, hospitality and media businesses.
 
In Heir village, ruling party claims–and the road–fall apart
 
Back in Heir, we met former sarpanch Balwinder Singh in front of his sprawling bungalow. Of the village’s 2,500 adults, 350 have government-issued blue cards–meaning, as we said, they have incomes less than Rs 60,000 per year and less than 2.5 acres of land–and 300 earn government pensions.
 
“We have made all roads pucca, except one whose work is pending because of the election,” said Balwinder. When we reached the main road of the village, his claims disintegrated, much like the road.
 

Balwinder Singh, a former sarpanch of Heir village, near Amritsar, in front of his sprawling bungalow. We asked him about the drug problem in the state, and he said: “When the parents can’t control their own children, how can they expect the government to?”
 
“This road has not been made in 20 years,” said Baljeet Kaur, whose husband worked 40 years in Dubai and son, despite being a graduate, works at menial jobs in an army canteen. “There are no street lights, and we don’t venture out at night because drug addicts hang out here.”
 
We asked Balwinder Singh about the drug problem, and he said: “When the parents can’t control their own children, how can they expect the government to?”
 
A few blocks ahead, we met tea-stall owner Narinder Singh, 36, a blue card holder who gets wheat and never pulses as he is supposed to.
 
“Every blue-card holder gets rations on time,” said Balwinder.
 
Narinder said he tried applying for funds to build a house under a government-subsidised housing programme, the Indira Awaas Yojana, but he didn’t get any money.
 
In Heir’s scheduled-caste block, Lakwinder Singh, 36, showed us the garbage-dumping yard and the sewage line that floods when it rains. He and his family are tired of the stink, but they don’t know where to complain.
 
“We have applied for money to build a toilet, but we didn’t get it yet so we have to defecate outside,” said Singh. “We do not believe any political party will fulfil its promise or make a difference in our lives.”
 
We storified our tweets from our travels in Punjab. You can read them all here.
 
(Yadavar is principal correspondent with IndiaSpend.)

This article was first appeared on IndiaSpend
 

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A worker grinds a metal gate inside a furniture factory in Ahmedabad. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s challenges, as he presents his fourth budget, centre on the agriculture sector struggling to emerge from a two-year drought; a seven-year decline in sales of manufacturing companies and a slowdown in the construction and textile sectors after demonetisation.
 
Jaitley’s challenges centre on the agriculture sector, on which 58% rural households depend, still recovering from a two-year drought–vast swathes of the south, as we reported, are now enduring the worst northeast monsoon in 140 years; a seven-year decline in sales of manufacturing companies; and a slowdown in, among others, the construction and textile sectors–the biggest employers after agriculture, 69 million combined–after the government scrapped 86% of India’s bank notes, by value, on November 8, 2016. Put together, these economic indicators jeopardise attempts to provide employment to young Indians–the failure to meet aspirations has set in motion a series of protests and agitations by various caste groups nationwide.
 
The budget is also likely to set the stage to end a 150-year colonial-era tradition of following the April-March financial year and switch to January-December, in line with the country’s monsoons and harvest, IndiaSpend reported in December 2016. Jaitley is also likely to break tradition and move away from plan and non-plan budget allocations–a method of accounting that considered five-year plans, which began in 1952 and ended in 2014–to budgeting by annual capital and revenue expenditure.

 
The government rides on falling oil prices, but the economy is struggling
 
The National Democratic Alliance government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has benefitted from declining global crude oil prices since 2013-14, saving the government over Rs 2.7 lakh crore ($39 billion) in 2015-16, IndiaSpend reported in February 2016. The savings have not been passed on to consumers, who have paid greater taxes on petroleum products; excise duties on petrol and diesel now account for over 50% of excise revenue, T N Ninan wrote in Business Standard on January 20, 2017.
 
While the Modi government has accepted the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission to increase the share of states in central taxes to 42% from 32%, money given to states could actually be between 26% and 39% lower, IndiaSpend reported on March 4, 2015.
 
Jaitley increased allocations to agriculture by 84% in 2016, but after adjusting for costs, an Indian farmer’s income effectively rose 5% per year over a decade (2003-2013), IndiaSpend reported in March 2016, calling into question Jaitley’s declaration of doubling farmers’ income over the next five years.
 
Rabi crops have been sown on nearly 63 million hectares, 6% more than last year (2014 and 2015 were drought years) and around 34% more than the average of the last five years, Business Standard reported on January 20, 2017.
 
The worry, however, is that the retreating northeast monsoon–usually unnoticed in India owing to the singular importance of the larger southwest monsoon–in 2016 was the worst ever over the last 140 years, according to Indian Meteorological Department records, IndiaSpend reported on January 10, 2017.
 
While the Tamil Nadu government has already drought in the state, south India’s combined reservoir levels are now at 30% of capacity, according to data from the ministry of water resources.
 
The industry scene is also worrying for the government. While the index of industrial production increased 5.7% in November 2016 compared to the previous year, rising non-performing assets and sluggish economic growth sparked a 60% decline in corporate borrowing over the last six years, IndiaSpend reported on January 13, 2017.
 
Some industrial recovery was apparent over the last two years, but notebandi–as the demonetisation exercise is referred to colloquially–set that back.
 
Notebandi and its impact on budget
 
The Rs 17-lakh crore demonetisation of the economy (click here to read our full coverage) slowed the growth rate to 7.1% from the earlier estimate of 7.6%, according to the December 2016 monetary policy statement by the Reserve Bank of India.
 
Growth for the second quarter (July-September) of the current financial year (2016-17) was down to 7.1% from 7.3% in the first quarter (April-June), according to November 2016 data from the ministry of statistics.
 
Direct-tax collections (income tax, corporate tax) increased over 12% to Rs 5.5 lakh crore for the nine-month period April-December, 2016, over the previous year, while indirect-tax collections (excise, customs) increased 25% to Rs 6.3 lakh crore, according to finance ministry data, belying some slowdown fears, although many sectors are now reporting slowdowns.
 
Jaitley had presented a budget of Rs 19.8 lakh crore for the year 2016-17, an increase of 11% over the 2015-16 budget estimate of Rs 17.8 lakh crore–equivalent to the cash in circulation before the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8, 2016.
 
With only two years to go for the general elections in 2019 and the mid-point of the Modi regime, the grand challenge will remain generating over a million jobs per month, amidst worrying education levels and health indicators, both important factors in preparing India to cater to a working-age population of about a billion people in 2020.
 
Courtesy: India Spend
 

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