New Delhi: In a steep decline, the government's Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), created 56 per cent less jobs in the first nine months of financial year 2019-2020, compared to last year.
According to data given by the Ministry of Labour and Employment earlier this month, PMEGP created 2,57,816 jobs till now; 56 per cent less than the 5,87,416 jobs the government claimed to have created under the same scheme in 2018-2019.
Given this decline till December, job creation under PMEGP is likely to remain significantly low this fiscal in compared to last year.
PMEGP, a credit linked subsidy programme, is administered by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. It is implemented by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), functioning as the nodal agency at the national level.
At the state level, the scheme is implemented through State KVIC Directorates, State Khadi and Village Industries Boards (KVIBs), District Industries Centres (DICs) and banks.
As per data, at least 4,07,840 persons were employed under the PMGEP in 2016-17. The figure, however, dipped in 2017-18 to 3,87,184.
Among larger states, Jammu and Kashmir, which was divided into two union territories of J&K and Ladakh after it was stripped of its special status on August 5 last year, witnessed one of the steepest declines in employment generation in the current fiscal. While 60,232 jobs were created under PMGEP in J&K in 2018-19, the same declined to 20,336 this year, a fall of over 66 per cent.
In Maharashtra, where over 45,000 people were employed under the scheme in 2018-19, just 20,000 jobs were created this year till December 2019. Job creation fell from more than 20,000 last fiscal to under 7,000 in the current fiscal in Madhya Pradesh.
Other flagship employment generation schemes too saw a fall in job creation, the data revealed.
For instance, under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), just over 44,000 skilled people were placed till January 27 which is one-fourth of the number of jobs -- 1,78,243 -- created under the scheme in 2018-19.
As many as, 1,51,901 and 1,15,416 persons were employed under DAY-NULM in 2016-17 and 2017-18, respectively.
DAY-NULM is a government scheme with an aim to uplift the urban poor by enhancing employment opportunities through skill development.
The sharpest decline in placements of people skilled under DAY-NULM was seen in Andhra Pradesh where the figure shrank from 54,610 in 2018-19 -- the highest among all states -- to mere six this fiscal.
Likewise, number of beneficiaries assisted for setting up individual/group micro enterprises under DAY-NULM fell from 1,36,863 in last fiscal year to just 66,618 this financial year.
Under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), a scheme similar to DAY-NULM for people in rural areas, number of people trained till December was 1,74,786. This is a sharp decline from the figure of 2,40,438 in 2018-19.
Consequently, the number of those placed declined from 1,35,502 to 1,10,862, respectively.
Similarly, under the flagship MGNREGS scheme, total person days generated fell from from 26,796 lakh in last fiscal to 20,577 till December this year.
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