SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
Sujay Gupta
Take one, take two, take ten, take 10,000. It's poll season time and the biggest currency, jobs could not have been kept in the locker. As the government has promised 10,000 jobs with about eight months to go for elections, it is clear that the economic compulsions, the state of our finances, our rising debt, the mounting interests on borrowings and adding to an already inflated workforce, whose salaries now and their pension benefits for lifelong, will have to be borne. It is not 10,000 jobs that the government will dole out. But a lifelong payment scheme.
The Pramod Sawant Government’s decision to lift the ban on recruitment is a sign of desperation. It is not unusual. It is not unique. But it is clear that the Chief Minister couldn’t hold the decision back any longer, facing pressure from cadres, ministers and MLAs. The reasoning is clear. Jobs will get you votes more than anything can. On September 26, 2020, the Chief Minister announced that the ban on recruitment which was done way back in November 2016 by then CM Laxmikant Parsekar would be lifted by January 2021. But even Dr Sawant couldn’t do because the State was in no position to take on the burden of these additional jobs. He waited for another six months till he could wait no longer.
But some questions need to be asked. Before the 2019 by-elections to the Panjim assembly seat, the Chief Minister had promised 50,000 jobs in three years. So is this promise of 10,000 jobs a part of the already promised 50,000 jobs? And if that is the case, then we should know many of those 50,000 jobs hitherto promised in 2019 have been fulfilled. It is almost impossible that the earlier promise of 50,000 jobs have been fulfilled and this is an additional bonus. And incidentally, the figure of 10,000 from December 2020 onwards was promised before the last Zilla Panchayat elections. It will be interesting to know how many got government jobs post the ZP elections. So is this announcement a top-up scheme or did that remain an unfulfilled promise in it entirely?
But the BJP isn’t the torchbearer of the jobs for the boys scheme. The Congress has mastered this and Vishwajit Rane the Health Minister whose roots lie in the Congress will not entirely disagree that he prides himself in looking after his constituency and one of the main carrots is jobs in his departments. There is a saying in the corridors of GMC that if you throw a chalk it will land on someone who has links to Sattari or Valpoi. And Junior Rane managed this as a Congressman as much as he does after his party colour changed.
Many in Goa will recall how after the Code of Conduct came into play in 2012, there were massive ad-hoc recruitments made in the Power Department by the ruling Congress government, throwing all norms to the wind and even dating the recruitment letters just before the code of conduct came into effect. These ‘recruits’ could be seen outside the power department offices playing cards and revelling in a Tinto type atmosphere because there was no real role for them.
It almost seems that when the elections bugle blows, governments get into panic mode. All policies, on paper to generate wealth, employment, entrepreneurship – like the IT policy, for instance, are kept in limbo when it comes to executing and implementing well-meaning policies meant to allow the private sector to create jobs. These jobs are meant for trained and skilled people and aimed at getting more investments into Goa.
In a conversation with this writer Milind Anvekar the President of the Goa Technology Association, (GTA) underlined the main needs of companies looking to invest in Goa. He kept it simple “Internet, power and transport”. In addition if the government helps with free land, subsidies on recruiting locals; (which is there in Goa’s IT policy too, but with little no implementation) along with benefits regarding power and other infrastructure, more skilled people will be hired on merit.”
Most importantly, beyond all this, investing companies look for a locally talented skill pool to recruit from. Companies prefer to hire locally to save costs of relocation. Goa has not planned to either plan or invest in creating an ecosystem of providing skills training across the board through institutions to make the youth of Goa industry ready.
An insight into how the IT policy is getting implemented is significant. The software for companies to register and get certified did not quite work for close to a year after the IT policy came into being. The efforts of the GTA led to the registration software process getting sorted out. They then worked on cutting down the time for the registration process, which has now been brought to 45 days. The bottom line here is that in the initial frustrating period when companies wanting to invest were struggling to get even registered, how many would have simply backed out. And in the process how many potential local jobs would have been denied.
Job creation is not the responsibility of the government alone. But here we have the private sector which has been and willing to further recruit. But in merit and from a created skill pool. And these jobs do not cost the government any money. Our money.
However, when merit has no pace and political connections are all that matter when ministers and MLAs fight to get a quota of job allocations to distribute like confetti to their voters, then all arguments in creating a skilled eco-system that includes start-ups, entrepreneurship, small businesses at the village level fall flat.
Sujay Gupta is the Consulting Editor Herald Publications and tweets @sujaygupta0832
