New Delhi, December 12: The central government's data put forward in the Parliament has revealed the drastic impact of on-going slowdown on job opportunities and job creation in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector.
Under Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), a major credit-linked subsidy programme is aimed at generating self-employment opportunities through establishment of micro-enterprises in the non-agriculture sector by helping traditional artisans and unemployed youth.
However, according to the data, in 2019-2020 till October 31 only 2,11,840 people have got job under PMEGP scheme. This is down from 5,87,416 in 2019-2020 and 3,87,182 people in 2018-2019. Under this scheme, in some states, no person has got a job so far. Under this category, Tripura is one state where no person has got any job. And in Kerala barely 72 people managed to get employment under this scheme.
Minister of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Nitin Gadkari shared the data while replying to a question by A M Ariff (CPI-M) about the details of the MSMEs and the number of persons employed therein in various states.
One pattern that is visible from this data is that the number of employment opportunities have declined in comparison to the year 2016-2017, 2017-2018 and 2019-2020. As in the year 2016-2017, 17,799 employment opportunities were created under this scheme but in 2019-2020 number of employment opportunities sharply declined to 6,488 till October 31. Even in the prime minister’s home state Gujarat also succumbed to the same phenomenon. In 2016-2017, 11,629 people managed to get employment under this scheme but cut to 2019-2020, the employment opportunities created slipped to 264 till October 31.
In terms of number of employment generated in various states, Kerala (72), Jammu & Kashmir (216), Telangana (256) and Gujarat (272) are at the bottom. While the states at the top are Uttar Pradesh (19032), Arunachal Pradesh (17,488), Karnataka (17,192) and Assam (16,992).
