India's employment: The challenges

In the concluding part of the series, the author says India's next challenge is to meet the aspirations of people who are employed but want higher incomes

So what is the true picture of employment in India? We now have extensive data available on people contributing to social security benefits are provided through the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and the National Pension Fund (NPS). Between September 2017 and November 2018, a total of 73,50,786 new subscribers were added to the EPFO, an average of 490,000 subscribers each month. ESIC tells a similar story. On an average, between September 2017 and November 2018, approximately 1-1.1 million subscribers were added each month. Even if we consider a 50 per cent overlap with