Kalam sees 76 mn jobs in five years

In a speech that read like a manifesto of a social democrat party, President APJ Abdul Kalam's 56th Republic Day address today reflected the play of ideological pulls and pressures on the government.

The President called for an action plan for employment generation through sectors like textiles and wasteland development and infrastructure, innovative health insurance, water harvesting, a mission for recycling everything and conversion of fly-ash into a new age manure.

He said an additional 76 million jobs could be created in the next five years if various schemes were taken up in the "mission mode" in sectors like textile, healthcare and wasteland development.

He also wanted missions for agriculture and food processing, education and healthcare, information and communication technology, infrastructure development and self-reliance in critical technologies leading to transforming India into a developed nation by 2020.

The "little man" got more than adequate recognition by the President as he spoke of technological application that would make the lives of ordinary citizens meaningful through bio-fuel generation, water harvesting and recycling, bamboo mission, converting fly-ash as a wealth generator and village knowledge centres as other areas, which could generate employment.

Observing that he had met more than 600,000 children from all parts of the country and during interaction with them, they posed a series of questions "will I get proper employment and be able to contribute to India, to make it a developed nation," the President said: "Their questions really made me think and think".

"The only answer to retain the smile from the child to the youth is to generate employment. It represents the aspirations and anxiety of nearly 540 million youth of our nation," he said.

Kalam said the schemes identified by him had the potential to generate about 56 million direct employment during the next five years. He said this did not include other employment avenues in the government and the private sector. "Together, creating 76 million jobs in the next five years looks feasible if only we take up each of these schemes in mission mode," he stressed.

The President said people were shifting from agriculture to manufacturing and services and "by 2020 our employment pattern should aim at 44 per cent in agriculture, 21 per cent in manufacturing and 35 per cent in service sectors."

Advocating bio-fuel generation in 63 million hectares of wastelands, he said those plants grown in 11 million hectares could yield a revenue of Rs 20,000 crore a year and provide employment to over 12 million people both for plantation and running of extraction plants. This would reduce foreign exchange outflow for import of crude oil, cost of which was continuously rising in the international market, he said.

Kalam stressed that full use of the generating stock of fly-ash would provide employment potential for 300,000 people and result in a business volume of over Rs 4,000 crore.

He also said fly-ash was a scientifically proved non-toxic fertiliser.

Compared to the world average of 700 kg of seed cotton per acre, India produced only 350 kg per acre. He said a training programme launched for farmers had shown that with soil characterisation, matching the cotton seed to the soil, water and fertiliser management had resulted in more than doubling in the average seed cotton yield.

Terming healthcare as another employment generating area, he spoke of the innovative method in operation in certain states under which citizens pay Rs 10 each per month as an insurance premium. Such an insurance cover should be able to provide treatment for all types of diseases including expensive open heart surgery.

The President gave 10 suggestions under which the education system has to impart the spirit that "we can do it", rural development has to be a mission mode operation and banks have to provide hassle free loans to rural enterprises.