The Prime Minster, Narendra Modi, painted a fine picture of Goa with infrastructure in place and the potential of Goa becoming the most comfortable place in India.While the sweeping nature of this claim can be contested and debated, with ground reports on the election trail from the remotest parts of Goa, indicating clear neglect of primary health care, schools and public transport, that’s not the subject at hand now.
What is and what should be is creation of wealth and opportunities as posed to creating jobs. The process of wealth creation and the framework needed to be in place to bring about this sense of empowerment unfortunately doesn’t find mention. Moreover a far more pragmatic and realistic projection of job creation is needed from this government along with a more honest assessment and audit of the delivery of the it’s promises on the job front in 2012.
For his part, former Chief Minister and Union Defence Minister Mr Manohar Parrikar does admit that there was a delay in generating jobs for the youth which were promised in the 2012 Assembly election manifesto. But the following claims will have to be examined on the touchstone of merit and must stand the test of scrutiny.
Mr Parrikar had said that in North Goa, the government has started creating jobs and training the youth for the Mopa airport. In South, for Mormugao and parts of Salcete, about 8-10 thousand job vacancies will be created through the Rs 36,000 crore project given to the Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL). The fulfillment of these assertions will be key to the government and the party’s success.
The next big ticket promise is that the government will create 41,000 jobs in Goa which would be highest in the country. The exact figure – 41,000 – is odd, but if that actually happens, there will be no looking back. However, the ink has not dried from first draft of this promise of 50,000 jobs. This again will be tested not for the sheer number but the kind of jobs that are generated.
It may be recalled that none other than Goa’s Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar had made a candid admission in the State Assembly that one of the assurances given – 80 percent jobs for locals in the private sector – cannot be enforced legally.
He did say in the Assembly that the law of the land does not permit penalising the industry for not employing locals.
If this is the case, then the MOUs signed between the government and companies, who apply for projects clearances through the Investment Promotion Board, with assurances of jobs, cannot be implemented unless there is a specific legal amendment making the delivery on the job front enforceable. This is the reason why to move forward on this very critical area, there has to be sweeping legislative reforms and the drafting of rules and the framing of laws to make job creation not a promise but a legal necessity.
But true empowerment will only happen when skill sets are developed and traditional occupations like farming encouraged so that the dependence on the government and private sector for jobs goes down.
In the context of the 2017 polls however, this continues to be BJP’s biggest worry.
