In one fell swoop, the Government of Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma has managed to give employment to 44,000-odd people in line with his pre-election promise of generating at least one lakh jobs in the State Government, mostly for its youth. The Chief Minister, during the formal distribution of appointment letters, also announced that in the weeks to come, more than 20,000 jobs, again in the Government, shall also be advertised. This means that in just over two years’ time, he will be able to fulfil his promise made to the electorates. While this is an unprecedented step in Assam since its Statehood, the Government must continue to nudge the private sector to do the same by facilitating an investment climate whereby jobs in thousands are generated by the manufacturing and the service sectors, knowing full well that the capacity of agriculture to generate jobs is limited.
What will warm the cockles of one’s heart is that the incumbent Government has recently signed MoUs worth ₹ 8,000-odd crores with private players across a range of industries like FMCG, beverage and cement. This will not only bring in capital but also generate meaningful employment.
A State whose capacity to generate revenue is still limited cannot be expected to be a job provider, although such an exercise is populist in nature and generally fetches electoral dividends. But any pragmatic State Government will know the finiteness of such attempts.
In a welfare state like India which believes in a lassiez-faire model of economy, this is a dichotomy. On the one hand, one is supposed to be allowing the market to have a free hand while on the other hand, some bit of machination for public welfare is always called for. While the State Government has done well so far to fill vacancies cutting across various departments, it is also important that most of its efforts are now targeted at creating an ecosystem for industries and the service sector to flourish.
Once this is done, it will automatically have a deep purse to pursue welfare measures for the masses.
