15 Questions for Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Here are 15 questions posed by The Wire for the prime
minister:
Jobless growth: Employment is one
of India’s biggest challenges and during the campaign for the last Lok Sabha
election, you had mocked the Congress for failing to deliver one crore (10
million) jobs. Now, four years later, multiple independent estimates say your
record on job creation is
just as bad if not worse– for example, only 1.4 million net jobs were added
in 2017. Why does your
government continue to cite EPFO data as proof of healthy job growth, when a
number of economists (including your new
chief statistician Pravin Srivastava) say it reflects the formalisation of
the economy and not job creation? As for loans under the Mudra scheme,
which your ministers have claimed are creating millions of jobs, the actual data makes it clear that most loans are so
small that they cannot create any employment, not even that of a pakoda
stall.
So, Mr Modi, where are
the jobs you promised your voters in 2014?
Rural distress: Your promise to
double farm incomes by 2022 is also completely off target. At last count, farm
incomes have grown only at 5% or less over the last four years. At
this rate, doubling farm incomes could take more than 14 years. It took you four years
to even make the claim that you will deliver on your campaign promise of an MSP
for farmers that is cost plus 50%. But across the country, farmers are forced
to sell their crops at less than MSP. They say the crop insurance scheme
you announced is a big fraud – they pay premiums but do not get the benefit. Your government’s
attitude towards the farm sector has triggered some of the largest kisan
agitations we have seen in recent years. Your response?
Fiscal matters: The NDA-II
government accused the UPA of fiscal profligacy and playing fast and loose with
deficit numbers. Yet your government has used of a number of ‘creative’
accounting techniques, including rolling over subsidy payments, relying heavily
on extra-budgetary resources, funding the deficit through small saving schemes
and using PSUs
to carry out disinvestment. How does this square with your claims of
fiscally conservative, minimum-government policies?
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