Nearly one fourth of Haryana’s work force employable over the age of 15 was jobless at the end of 2019, according to the data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Educated people in the urban areas took a bigger hit, the CMIE found. Around 20 lakh people are in the state who are willing to
work but are unemployed. Unemployment rate in Haryana was at 26.4 percent as of February 2021, which is the highest in the country. The national average was 6.9 percent.
In urban areas more than 23% of the workforce was without any employment compared to 21% in rural areas and age wise unemployment distribution shows, that fresh graduates and drop-outs in their early twenties are the job seekers
Analysis of unemployment also found a huge gap between the gender, while 18% of male workforce was found jobless,66% employable females were jobless. In 2020 during and after lockdown Haryana has the highest unemployment rate of 33.6 per cent, followed by Tripura at 21.3 per cent and Jharkhand at 21 percent so we were in need of an employment generation strategy to combat the high unemployment rate in the State according to data CMIE. Although this policy will absorb the surplus skilled workers of Haryana, there is every chance of driving away industries to other states.
Haryana is one of the biggest hubs in automobile manufacturing in India, housing five factories of the country’s leading passenger vehicle and two-wheeler makers including Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Hero MotoCorp Ltd and Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Ltd.. Haryana accounts for more than half of India’s automobile manufacturing and is the headquarters of 75 per cent of the manufacturing hub in India. It has 23 special economic zones.
Still we find a paradox of unemployment and development. It is a suitable time to calculate cost benefit analysis of being an industrial hub and Haryana should welcome the industries that will generate revenue for state and employment for the youth of Haryana. On the revenue side from GST, there is less hope of revenue generation as GST is a consumption-oriented tax and it doesn’t give additional benefits to the manufacturing state, then employment remains the only benefit a states can derive but for this we have to assure the MNC’s and industries that we will supply the skilled and technical workforce as per their requirements and for this Haryana have already put in place a robust skilling infrastructure and Haryana are the first state to have a skills university. We need more professional course institutes and technical education institutes to make our youth skilled workers. Supply of skilled labour will take a long time and there is fear of shifting of industries.
Experts says that to create more employment, the state government have to come up with robust economic policies and investment as already established private industries are not sufficient.
The essence of the act is against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s wish of a united and self-reliant Bharat. This act is brought in by a state that is a hub of manufacturing and services in the country and this may have spillover effects on other states. Andhra Pradesh recently legislated a law similar to Haryana and same is going to be from other states, like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, for such legislation.
All of this comes at a time when the country is already going through a debate on redefining federalism, wherein the issue of distribution of timely and stipulated GST funds, the state’s rights to formulate laws governing subjects in the Concurrent List, such as labour, agriculture marketing and electricity, are been hotly discussed. Given this, the new legislation passed by Haryana has the potential to add fuel to the fire. However, this could be counter-productive and drive away industries.
(The writer is Assistant professor in Economics, S.D.College, Ambala. Views are personal)