DeMon effect: Critics, experts silenced as jobs grew

Prime Minister Modi’s game-changing demonetization move has had its fair share of detractors. A motley crew of politicians, armchair activists, and left-leaning liberals — that had left no stone unturned in excoriating the proposal — are eating humble pie, given the rich electoral dividends the BJP has reaped from the economic reform in the UP assembly elections. Now, a new set of data has been released by the Labour Bureau, which puts paid to the ominous estimates made by these self-styled experts on the damage caused to the employment scenario in India by demonetization. A report by Motilal Oswal — a financial services firm —claims the popular perception that demonetization hurt employment prospects is completely misplaced. The policy, according to the report, saw an increase in the number of jobs (1,22,000) in the third quarter of FY17, much higher than the job growth of 32,000 registered in the immediately preceding quarter. Citing data from the Labour Bureau, the report claims that the manufacturing sector outperformed other sectors by adding 83,000 jobs in the quarter ending December 2016, against the measly addition of 24,000 in the earlier quarter. Second in lead-in terms of job addition- was the education domain, which saw a surge of 18,000 jobs, followed by IT/BPO domain (12,000), trade (7,000) and health (2,000). Another key achievement that the Modi government has to its credit is the rising number of regular and contractual workers in the Indian economy, which grew by 1,39,000 and 1,24,000 during the time demonetization was being implemented. In retrospect, it is now obvious to a number of stakeholders that criticising demonetization at a time when it had fervent mass appeal was a politically disastrous career move. Obviously, the Indian people are tired of the age-old political dynamic where netas are keen on exploiting realpolitik expediencies for political gains. They have come to see through the ploy and abhor it.