Budget 2021 should look at ways to boost employment

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Budget 2021 must lay great emphasis on employment and boosting GDP. Creation of new job markets is imperative.

Over 150,000 kilometres of highways hardly have any eating places or accident pickup spots. If we were to install a shack every 2 km and equip it with 5 people to tackle breakdowns, keep eyes for safety of on-road travellers, provide first aid and utilities, we would have approximately 1,00,000 such shacks.

These shacks could be auctioned en masse to retail chains and advertisers earning enough revenue to take care of its construction and upkeep. Each shack can be built for less than Rs 10 lakh, like a porta cabin. We could find new jobs for at least half million people and across 100,000 shacks, the total infrastructure creation would be USD 1.5 billion. This effort can be funded by a small fee levied at the time of purchase of vehicles.

Creating new cities to ease pressure on the existing ones, will boost new spending leading to new job markets. They will require roads, new housing complexes and several support systems. The National Skills initiative will get a boost.

A new startup “Internet of cows” must be promoted. Monitoring cow’s health through a GPS-enabled cow collar, that monitors WBC count, avoids mastitis and helps raise milk production is possible.

Cloud, AI, data analytics and Cow Fitbits can facilitate on-the-fly monitoring. Cow herding, AI-based milk automation, intelligent cow sheds, massively growing grass, using even the non-arable land, veterinary scientists, doctors, cow urine, gobar processing plants and many others are possible.

Hundreds of PhDs and thousands of research papers are produced every year without a converging theme. Like in Germany, we need a Max Planck University model for Basic research and a Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft University model for applied research with a focus on productisation rather only on publishing papers. New products can emerge in various sectors like defence, Railways, agriculture and infrastructure. It will not only boost Indian manufacturing capabilities, but also create new employment opportunities.

We need more doctors, hospital beds and paramedics. A record four million passenger cars and commercial vehicles were sold in India in 2018. India’s two-wheeler industry sold about 20 million motorcycles in 2018. We spend at least Rs 150-250/month just to speak on a mobile phone and the country’s telecom subscriber is more than 120-crore. Even as little as Rs 25 levied on these services can build hospitals in tier 2 and tier 3 cities creating massive employment.

The Budget must recognise the synergy between online and blended learning. Several new employment opportunities in areas such as content creation, AR/VR adoption, gaming technics and SW development in a cloud environment exist. Rethinking education paradigm and providing adequate budgets to support will be required.

(The writer is former Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Views expressed are personal)