Job creation a critical pressure point for India, says Rajan
The nation needs to create jobs at every level going along the path of development, said Rajan, presently Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, USA.
RBI Governor Raghuram G Ranjan
NEW DELHI: Indian economy, dubbed the fastest growing major economy in the world, is faced with the single most important pressure point of job creation, says former RBI Governor Raghuram G Ranjan as he makes a strong case for improvement of human capital through skill development.
Talking about the book ‘Breaking the mould: Reimagining India’s economic future’, written jointly by him and Rohit Lamba, assistant professor of economics at Pennsylvania State University, Rajan said one of the greatest strength of India is its human capital of 1.4 billion and the question is “how do you make it strong?’’
The nation needs to create jobs at every level going along the path of development, said Rajan, presently Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, USA.
“Jobs is the single most important pressure point... If we had many more private sector jobs showing up, would there be so much pressure on reservations? Perhaps there’ll be less so to some extent,’’he said, regretting that states are trying to reserve jobs for their residents, which is a worrisome trend.
“...that’s a reflection of the fact that we’re not providing jobs. And I would say that it is the primary concern. We are a united country. You can’t reserve jobs in your state for people from the state. It has to be available for everybody. We’ve benefited so much from each other’s migration,’’ Rajan said. Making a case for improvement of human capital, he said, “if we create well educated high school graduates, if we move some of them to vocational training,’’ lots of jobs can be created in the next six months to a year and the nation will not have to wait for 10 years to generate employment.
Citing an example, he said, “one place where we are severely understaffed is local government, partly because they don’t do very much. You need to improve the functions that they have to do. “
Rajan further said, “If we improve the human capital, the biggest problem of today, the jobs that we need, will come automatically... companies will come to India.’’