Major challenge before nation is to create jobs: Anand Sharma

MUMBAI: Commerce & industry minister Anand Sharma has admitted that the creation of jobs is a major challenge before the nation.

It is necessary to go back to a high rate of economic growth rate of around 9 per cent per annum, he added.

Speaking on the issue of corruption and scams, the minister claimed India has in place an "effective mechanism in the form of free judiciary to fix the problem".

Citing the example of the Satyam scam, Sharma said the government had facilitated the transfer of ownership in a transparent manner, at the same time protecting over 20,000 jobs. He said, "Unfortunately, only the negatives get magnified and the positives are not reported by the media."

Sharma was speaking at a CII interaction titled 'Transforming India: Role of Youth' before 500 students of St Xavier's College in Mumbai. "High growth is not an option but an imperative. The larger issue is not just numbers but the social dimension. If we fail to address the issue of job creation, the social cost will be unbearable," he warned.

In order to generate more employment, he said that the share of manufacturing in the GDP must climb up to 26 per cent from the current 16 per cent. Sharma believes the National Manufacturing Policy is one of the key instruments to achieve this goal. He briefed students about the National Skill Development Mission which has set an ambitious target of imparting job skills to 500 million persons by the year 2022.

Claiming that the Centre is serious about making India a major manufacturing hub, Sharma said the government is in the process of establishing 12 stand-alone world class industrial townships across the country. Terming the upcoming Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor as the biggest industrial infrastructure project in the world at this time, Sharma said that nine of the 12 industrial townships fall under DMIC, with the 900 sq km Dholera Industrial Centre in Gujarat being the largest.

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Major challenge before nation is to create jobs: Anand Sharma