 "Why Union Budget 2013 will be about increasing jobs")
An interesting thing to speculate on is which parts of the Raghuram Rajan-produced Economy Survey the Finance Minister will choose to take on board.
The new thing the Survey talked about this time was jobs - both how to increase them, and how to improve the quality of the jobs available in the economy.
Now creating jobs is critical to political nirvana. So, one can be sure that the budget will talk about jobs.
The last two National Sample Surveys showed that there was very little job creation during UPA rule , even while the NDA did much better.
[caption id=“attachment_643028” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption]
The survey makes several recommendations on how to increase jobs: these include giving a fillip to small and medium enterprises, which employ more than 80 million people, reducing the burden of regulation on them, and by improving the access to credit.
One should expect announcements in this regard.
The survey talks about easing labour laws, and also makes a case for asking organised sector companies, which created very few jobs after liberalisation in 1991, to take on apprentices.
Creating more jobs in the organised sector needs changes in labour laws on hiring and firing, but this is political dynamite. The FM could thus take the apprentice route. Making apprentices easier to hire by diluting labour laws for them is easier - no one will strenuously object to the creation of jobs that currently don’t exist.
One should expect the finance minister to say something on this.
Let’s remember, the Railway Minister announced the creation of 1,52,000 jobs in railways the other day, despite parlous finances.
P Chidambaram is not going to miss this trick. And it may not cost much. You just have to make the announcement; whether the jobs happen or not is another story.
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