SP Gupta zindabad

Montek Singh Ahluwalia may have been the prime minister’s choice to head the Planning Commission, but the Survey’s given him the short shrift. As member of the Commission in 2001, Ahluwalia headed a Task Force on Employment Opportunities.

While the report projected a rise in the country’s unemployment by 2006-07 (from 2.2 in 1999-00 to 5.6 if there was a 6.5 per cent GDP growth), it broadly endorsed the growth-means-jobs view.

A year later, the NDA government set up another group, this time under S.P. Gupta, another member of the Commission. Gupta’s Special Group differed widely from the earlier one.

For one, both used different definitions of unemployment, and against Ahluwalia’s 2.2 per cent, Gupta’s initial unemployment estimate was 7.3. Gupta also concluded GDP growth was nowhere near enough, and so recommended special programmes in areas like agriculture to boost jobs growth.

Gupta projected unemployment would rise to 11 per cent in 2006-07, and this could be reduced to 9.3 with focussed farm and other projects.

While discussing unemployment, the Survey uses Gupta’s 7.3 per cent figure, and then goes on to talk of how the Special Group had said there would be an increase in unemployment rates unless certain labour-intensive activities were pursued, and says this could lead to 20 million new jobs during the 10th plan. It also talks of how another task force was headed by Gupta, to monitor employment strategies and performance.

With Gupta having resigned from the Commission, and Ahluwalia now heading it, it’ll be interesting to see which report finally prevails.