'Modi govt has only one mission...': Kharge after Labour Ministry refutes Citigroup's report

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said that the Modi government has only one mission and that is to keep the Indian youth jobless. In a scathing attack on the Centre over the issue of unemployment, Kharge that the ruling dispensation may refute independent economic reports but it can't deny government data. 

"The truth is that Modi government is solely responsible for shattering the dreams of crores of youth in the last 10 years," Kharge said in a long post on X (formerly Twitter). He further said that the latest government data contradicts the Centre's claims. 

Citing NSSO's Annual Survey of Unicorporated Sector Enterprises, Kharge said in the manufacturing sector, 54 lakh jobs were lost in unincorporated units in the seven years between 2015 and 2023. 

"A report by IIM Lucknow, after analysing government data, shows that unemployment growth, high unemployment among the educated, low participation of women in the workforce are prevalent in the country," he added. 

Furthermore, Kharge said: "According to the latest report of Citigroup, India needs 1.2 crore jobs annually, and even 7% GDP growth will not be able to create enough jobs for our youth. Under the Modi Govt, the country has achieved an average of only 5.8% as GDP growth".

His comments came a day after the Labour Ministry refuted a report by the Citigroup, which claimed that the government will find it challenging to create enough jobs for the population over the next decade even with a 7 per cent growth rate.

The Citigroup report further suggested measures to boost employment creation. In its rebuttal, the Labour Ministry highlighted 'several shortcomings' in the report, which claimed it does not 'analyse all official data sources available in the public domain.' 

“The report fails to account for the comprehensive and positive employment data available from official sources such as the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and the Reserve Bank of India’s KLEMS data,” the Ministry of Labour and Employment said. 

The Congress, which has been attacking the government over the issue of unemployment, on Sunday cited the Citigroup report to allege that the Modi government had accentuated India's "unemployment crisis" with the decimation of job-creating MSMEs through the "Tughlakian demonetisation, a hastily rushed GST, and rising imports from China".