Continued from:
Such
arguments sound sham when we come across regular reports of massive corruption
in almost every government project. Almost nothing, not even the rural India
centric massive projects with an ambition to cover the most parts of the nation
are beyond the web of the neck-deep political and bureaucratic corruption.
Advertisements
by the government departments and ministries are supposed to act as tools to
aware and empower the people intended to be the beneficiaries of different
programmes and projects to ask for what is rightfully and legally theirs.
Instead,
their ignorance and their inability to convey the wrongs happening as reflected
in the large-scale corruption tell either the government efforts to aware and
empower the people are failing or the government is not at all serious about
the ultimate aim of such initiatives – making aware and empower and instead is
busy in bushing the beat making such advertisements a personal branding
exercise for the person or group of persons involved. And if that be the case,
it is certainly not an acceptable practice. Such wastage of public funds is
deplorable.
But, as
has become clear, the insensitive political class doesn’t even think about such
considerations. Rather, they prefer to suppress the voices trying to show them
the reality. As the election time is approaching near, the UPA government and
Mr. Manmohan Singh are ratcheting up the (empty)
rhetoric again with heavy advertising to showcase what is not there; literally,
to befool us again.
Coming
back to where we began, on youth and
unemployment in India, Manmohan Singh recently said: “The unemployment rate came down from 8.3% to 6.6% between 2004-05 and 2009-10. This period suffered from one of the worst global
meltdowns in history and most of the countries, developed and developing, have
registered increased in their unemployment rates while we were still able to
create additional jobs. Employment in the unorganised sector registered a
growth of more than 9% from 26.5 million in 2005 to 29 million in 2011.”
But his
assertions fall flat when we see the larger picture that is not what Manmohan
is trying to make us see.
According
to a report published in The Wall Street Journal (Young, Jobless and Indian,
November 23, 2012): “The
latest World Development Report by the World Bank says India’s youth
unemployment — as a percentage of the youth work force — was 9.9% for males and
11.3% for females in 2010. In 1985, the figures were 8.3% and 8%, respectively.
Youth unemployment in India, like most countries, has consistently been above
the national average. But of late, the data indicate rising youth unemployment,
now virtually 50% more than the national average, or total unemployment rate.”
Qualitatively disturbing! Now see this assessment
from the International Labour Organization (ILO).
ILO
says in its Global Unemployment Trends 2007-13, released in May 2013: What does
it say about unemployment in India: “In
India there is evidence that youth unemployment rates are higher for families
with incomes over the $1.25 poverty rate than for those with incomes under this
poverty line. “In developing countries such as India, as much as two-thirds of
young workers receive below average wages and are engaged in work for which
they are either over-qualified or under-qualified. Over-education and
over-skilling co-exist with under-education and under-skilling. Such a mismatch
makes solutions to the youth employment crisis more difficult to find”
A
mismatch! Indeed it is. A population of
over a billion with majority of them quality-illiterate, poorly-fed and living
a sub-standard quality of life needs a political and bureaucratic class that
could understand this mismatch to work out effective solutions.
Instead,
we have a political and bureaucratic class that has become synonymous with
corruption, nepotism, insensitivity and elitism.
Instead
of addressing such grave problems with the seriousness demanded, the Manmohan Singh
led governments is pouring the money from the public funds freely into massive
cover-up operations to create an illusion of the achievements that are not
there, to create a layer of propaganda to hide the utter failure that his
government has been during its second terms in the office since May 2009.
The
insensitivity and the rashness reflect in the advertisement campaigns like
Bharat Nirman or this reported campaign targeting the overseas audience or the
reports of a Rs 100 crore campaign by the UPA government in September 2012 to
justify the retail FDI decision and diesel-pricing deregulation and price hike
or the Hindustan Times report (UPA ad blitz gets Rs. 630 crore more, June 6,
2013) that says the Finance Ministry okays Rs 630 crore more for the Bharat
Nirman campaign.
Mr.
Manmohan Singh, the youth from the 7 crore of the unemployed or underemployed people
or 70 crores or more of the Indians, quality-illiterate, poorly-fed, the Indians
forced to live a sub-standard quality of life, cannot buy your sham every time.
NDA had learnt this lesson in a bitter way in 2004.
This time,
it may well be a telling development for your government the signs of which you
are not reading. Stop wasting millions that could give livelihood to the
millions. That is not your private money. It is rightfully theirs.