Budget 2026 Must Prioritize Jobs for Youth Bulge, Says Mohandas Pai

In an interaction with IANS, Pai pointed out that 1.2 to 1.4 crore new people are joining EPFO, paying money with Aadhaar. "Don't believe all these leftist JNU people who say there are no jobs. The jobs are happening," he remarked.

"However, the tragedy of India is that we are in the midst of a youth bulge. Between 1990 and 2010, about 50 crore children were born. Now, they're all growing up and coming into the workforce. Every year, two and a half crore young people come into the workforce, and a majority of them want jobs," he said.

Pai said that maybe 1.82 crore people want jobs every year, but 80 per cent of jobs pay less than Rs 20,000, so it is important to create high-paying jobs, especially in urban areas.

He came out strongly in favour of expanding the Kaushal scheme launched by the Centre to provide incentives to the private sector for creating more employment.

"First, declare 350 poor districts as employment, special employment zone, SEZ, and say anybody creating a job there, paying ESI and PF, will get Rs 2,000 a month as an incentive for 24 months for that employee," he suggested.

He contended that this would defray the cost of hiring and training in that particular place. Because when you go to the rural areas and hire people, you've got to train them up, he said.

"They say their skill is there, but you don't get it. And also, the government must pay the ESI and PF contribution for that employee for two years, which is already there in the Kaushal scheme. And that will create a lot of jobs in the 350 poorest districts," Pai observed.

He further stated that there was a need to invest in developing infrastructure in the 5,000 smaller towns all over India. This will incentivise people to start small industries there, and once the quality of living goes up in the smaller cities, more people will come and live there, and urbanisation will increase.

"In the smaller cities, there will be job creation. And because we don't get excess labour supply in the bigger cities, wages will go up everywhere," Pai claimed.

He also suggested that the government should pick up the top 10 cities of India and give them Rs 5,000 to 10,000 crore a year for the next five years to improve their roads, sewage, water, and air quality.

Pai further highlighted that the country's banking sector is in great shape and investment is going up in the economy, with next year's GDP growth expected at 6.5 to 7 per cent despite the global uncertainties.

He said this year the investment would be about Rs 95 lakh crore, which is more than a trillion dollars.

Regarding the IT sector, Pai said the RBI regulations need to be liberalised to take the sector to Rs 10 trillion, and funding is required for startups.

"In the last 11 years, India's startups got $160 billion of funding compared to China's $845 billion and America's $2.35 trillion. So we need more funding. There's a Rs 1 lakh crore fund which has been set up for R&D in the public sector and private sector. But it's all run by government secretaries," he observed.

Pai said that the startup fund started in 2015 and has been successful because of the Rs 10,000 crore capital.

"So I think it's very important for the government to do it right. So funding is important for the IT startups and for deep technology, and I hope they do it. Why can't we spend Rs 50,000 crore a year on innovation? China spent $150 billion on AI in the last seven years, $300 billion on EVs in the last 10 years, and they've become globally dominant," Pai pointed out.

"We got Rs 11,000, Rs 12,000 crore AI fund. Even then, they're parcelling it out to small, small companies. The world is moving fast. Put Rs 40,000, Rs 50,000 crore of funding for startups to give to venture capitalists and let them run, let there be innovation," he added.

- IANS