THE Economic Survey clearly states that employment growth in the organised sector, both public and private combined, had declined between 1994 and 2006, with the main decline being in the public sector. Further, data from a few sample surveys, including one conducted by the Labour Bureau during October-December 2008, show a decrease of about half a million workers across 2,581 units surveyed. Strangely, the Labour Bureau survey refrained from calling the decrease "job loss". Some other surveys showed that around one lakh jobs were lost in January 2009 alone. The Department of Commerce, too, in its own study of 402 export units, found that more than a lakh jobs had been lost during August 2008 and January 2009.
Most trade unions opined that the job losses were underestimated and expressed concern that the fiscal stimulus for the unorganised sector, recommended by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, was missing in the Budget.
The trade union leaders Frontline spoke to felt that the government was in denial of the global economic slowdown and its impact on India and all that it was concerned with was curtailing expenditure in crucial areas and concentrating more on containing the fiscal deficit.
M.K. Pandhe, president, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), while welcoming the increase in the minimum wage under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) to Rs.100 from Rs.60, regretted that the government did not consider the trade unions' representation to the government that the number of working days be extended to 180 days from the present 100.
The Budget was silent on the question of employment generation, he said, with no bailouts proposed for the working class. He expressed concern that the Economic Survey gave employers the right to reduce their manpower, which was in other words the right to hire and fire. "The potential dangers for the working class are spelt out in the Economic Survey," he said.
The National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) of the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, whose blueprint the Left parties had helped prepare, had committed itself to extending the NREGS to the urban poor as well. The Budget, he said, had ignored that aspect. The money allocated to the NREGS was hardly enough to cover even the rural population, he added. The CITU, he said, was critical of the abolition of the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) as it would aid share brokers in their efforts to push up the stock market.
The unions were concerned about the government's moves in the areas of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the retail sector, insurance and banking. According to latest Census figures, there were about four lakh people employed in the retail sector, and their interests would be severely compromised if the sector were opened up, he said.
"In the election campaigns, the Congress party promised that it would recover all the money stashed away abroad in foreign banks. The Finance Minister has been rather quiet about this," Pandhe said.
D.L. Sachdeva, the national secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), told Frontline that the Budget was "inconsequential". There was no provision to create jobs despite the Congress party's manifesto promising to create 12 million jobs. He said that even though the government had brought in legislation for social security for workers in the unorganised sector, there was no provision for social security in concrete financial terms.
Sachdeva was critical of the government's moves to go in for disinvestment of public sector undertakings.He felt that critical sectors such as the NHPC (formerly known as National Hydroelectric Power Corporation) and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) were potential targets.
He questioned the need to make tax-free the donations given to political parties and argued that this would make the political system more subservient to the corporate sector.
He said the Congress was trying hard to take on board some of its allies on the issue of labour law reforms, including amendments to the Factories Act that would give companies the freedom to fire workers without notice. He said it was lamentable that the government did not have a proper study on the impact of job losses nationally and that whatever studies had appeared were confined to certain industries and sectors.
Suneet Chopra, joint secretary of the All India Agricultural Workers' Union, felt that the government had regressed from many things it had promised in the NCMP in 2004. Despite the ongoing agrarian crisis, neither land reforms nor cheap credit to farmers was anywhere on the agenda, either in the Economic Survey or in the Budget, he said.
Chopra, who is also member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said that despite a failing monsoon, the government had failed to spell out measures for enhanced power generation for agriculture. The Budget allocation for minor irrigation had, in fact, gone down when compared with what was sanctioned last year, he added.
Interest rates on rural credit were still high, he said. This and the precarious monsoon would push up food prices, the impact of which would be felt most by the rural poor. As for the NREGA, he said that though allocations had been stepped up, the utilisation by State governments was very low barring a few States such as Tripura. "The current agrarian crisis is bound to get aggravated by a combination of policy decisions and natural disasters," he said.
T.K. RajalakshmiCOMMents
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