High-powered Cabinet Committees tasked to heal economy in concerted manner
Amid economic slowdown and rising unemployment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday constituted two new Cabinet committees under his chairmanship to spur economic growth, investment and employment in an urgent and concerted manner.
The five-member Cabinet committee on investments and growth will include the Prime Minister, Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari. Goyal also heads Commerce Ministry and Nitin Gadkari, Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), two industry-linked portfolios which will be crucial while making investment-related decisions.
The committee for investment will be a crucial special purpose vehicle for the Modi Government’s promise to invest `100 lakh crore in infrastructure in next five years.
The Cabinet committee on employment and skill development, headed by the PM, will have 10 Ministers as members, including Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Agriculture and Panchayti Raj Minister Naresh Singh Tomar, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Skill and Entrepreneurship Minister Mahendra Pandey, Housing Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
Sources in the Government said the setting up of two key committees within the Cabinet indicates the realisation within the BJP that the Opposition may have failed to build a narrative against Modi in the recent Lok Sabha elections on issues like jobs and economy but the concerns flagged by the Opposition were real.
Unemployment and the economy had been pitched as major issues by the Congress during the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. However, the party faced a crushing defeat in the elections, winning just 52 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha. The BJP’s victory was attributed mainly to its nationalism pitch during the campaign, where the economy was barely referred to.
According to the Government data released last week, the economy grew at a much slower-than-expected 5.8 per cent in the January-March quarter of fiscal year 2018-19, compared with 6.4 per cent in China. It was the slowest growth rate in more than four years in the January-March period, falling behind China’s pace for the first time in nearly two years. Overall GDP for last financial year has been estimated at 6.8 per cent against a target of 7.2 per cent.
On the employment front, just after the elections were over, the Government released the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) Annual Report (July 2017 — July 2018) which put the unemployment rate at 6.1 per cent, the highest in 45 years. As per the PLFS, which covered 4.3 lakh people across 1.02 lakh households, the unemployment rate among urban workforce was 7.8 per cent, while the unemployment rate for the rural workforce was 5.3 per cent. The unemployment rate among males on all-India basis was 6.2 per cent, while it was 5.7 per cent in case of females.
It also showed that the unemployment rate for males was higher at 7.1 per cent in urban areas compared to 5.8 per cent in rural areas. Similarly, the unemployment rate for women was also higher in urban areas at 10.8 per cent compared to 3.8 per cent in rural areas.
The Government has reconstituted five-member Cabinet committee on security and it includes Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
In its previous term, Modi had set up six ministerial panels in all. These included the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, Cabinet Committee on Accommodation, Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs and Cabinet Committee on Security.