Poverty and unemployment are two issues which the country urgently needs addressed to prevent abnormally high suicide rate from increasing further. As per the information provided by Minister of State (Home) Nityananda Rai in the Rajya Sabha, 25 thousand Indians committed suicide either due to bankruptcy or unemployment during the last two years. Undoubtedly, this is an alarming situation and without wasting any time, all should work in unison to save the country from this impending disaster. The task is to create enough jobs for our youth; saving people from indebtedness. To achieve this feat, India may have to redraw some of its economic policies to ensure that development brings employment and vice-versa. Indeed, it’s a tough task to maintain a balance between the two as in present day, there are few options for labour intensive industries due to modern technologies. This is a major problem for a thickly populated country like India and we will have to find an answer to this problem at the earliest.
The Indian economy has faced a number of hurdles since Independence. Initially, the country adopted the policy of mixed economy wherein both the government and private players played an equally important role in nation building. This was done specifically to establish India as a welfare state and to deter private parties from being driven by profitability alone. In this era, many public sector undertakings as well as private companies came up and contributed heavily to our economic progress, which provided employment for many. But in the early nineties, new economic policy was introduced and it opened the door for private investments to play a more aggressive role. Initially, the policy proved to be a successful one as the country managed to register higher growth rates; but the euphoria was short lived as private parties began ignoring social responsibilities for the sake of profit.
It initiated a debate on the path that India should adopt to ensure speedy economic development. Whilst a section of India argued strongly in favour of new economic policy, there were demands to revert back to the old policy as well. As a result, economic reforms were halted midway, forcing the country to look for a new concept to balance welfare and profitability. Supporters of the new economic policy believe that trickling-down effect will address the welfare aspect, while the other section denounces it by arguing that private players will never transfer benefits that they receive from the government, to the poor. In this context, the role of the government is to ensure that welfare measures are not ignored. Increased allocation to infrastructure is a positive step towards this direction; but public spending should also be increased simultaneously. The government may also think of withdrawing sops given to business houses in-order to aid generation of funds for public spending. Such steps may help India to tackle poverty and unemployment, which is the need of the hour.