New Delhi, Confronted with the problems of economic slowdown and rising unemployment, the NDA government on Thursday reconstituted several Cabinet committees including two high level committees to look into the issue of unemployment, investment and growth. Ahead of the first Budget of the Modi government in its second term, the government has constituted Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, Cabinet Committee on Accommodation, Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, Cabinet Committee on Security, Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth and Cabinet Committee on Employment and Skill Development.
The eight committees which include the Cabinet committees on economic affairs and on employment and skill development will directly deal with unemployment and slipping GDP figures. This is the first time that such panels have been setup. Both of these panels will be headed by PM Modi himself. Apart from Modi, the Cabinet Committee on Employment and Skill Development will also include Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Niramala Sitharaman, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Skill Development M N Pandey, Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar and Housing and Urban Development Minister Hardeep Puri.
The Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth will have Amit Shah, Nirmala Sithataman, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari and Railways and Piyush Goyal as its members. The constitution of the committee’s comes in wake of the release of the NSSO data on unemployment touching a 45-year low. The data released by the Union Labour Ministry in May showed 7.8 per cent of all employable urban youth being jobless, while the percentage for the rural was 5.3 pc. The unemployment rate in 2017-18 was 6.1 per cent, corroborating the pre-election leaked report that had claimed joblessness at a 45-year high. It also comes ahead of the release of the Central Statistics Office (CSO) data that showed economic growth has slowed down to a 5-year low of 5.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2018-19, pushing India behind China, due to poor show by agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
