Govt Plans To Set Up Expert Panel For Drafting First National Employment Policy

The government is looking to set up a committee as a part of the National Employment Policy (NEP) that seeks to draw up a roadmap to improve job opportunities in the country.

The committee will include representatives from the labour and other ministries, besides prominent people from industry, officials aware of the matter told Moneycontrol.

“The government may form a high-powered committee in which the views and recommendations of the committee will be taken,” said one official.

The NEP seeks to lay out a sector-wise strategy to improve the potential of job creation by drawing investments to employment-intensive sectors, policy interventions and attracting new industries by creating an enabling environment.

The NEP would take shape based on data from five all-India labour surveys and the recently launched E-Shram portal to facilitate evidence-based policymaking for employment generation. After following due processes and stakeholder consultations, it would then be sent to the cabinet for approval.

In September this year, the government had released the results of the first All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES) for the April-June 2021 quarter.

AQEES is among the five nationwide annual surveys conducted by the labour bureau, an attached office of the ministry of labour and employment. The other four are the All -India Survey of Migrant Workers, All-India Survey of Domestic Workers, All-India Survey of Employment Generated by Professionals and All-India Survey of Employment Generated in the Transport Sector.

On August 26, the labour ministry had launched the National Database for Unorganised Workers or the E-Shram portal. It is a platform for registering an estimated 380 million informal and unorganised workers including construction workers, gig and platform workers, street vendors, domestic, agricultural and migrant workers, and other similar sub-groups of unorganised workers.

The database will facilitate the implementation of policies for the unorganised sector. It will help in better monitoring and supervision of government policies and ensure that benefits reach the targeted group at the grassroots level.

The NEP comes in the wake of ballooning unemployment in the country. According to private think tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), In April 2020, the unemployment rate touched a record high of 23.52 percent when the country was under a nationwide lockdown.

As per CMIE, during the April-June 2020-21 quarter, some 121 million jobs were lost, the highest ever monthly job loss on record since it started compiling employment data.

Source: MC