NITI Aayog has proposed the government set up a labour utilization fund in order to tackle the growing issue of redundancy of low-skilled labour. The institution believes that automation is replacing low-skilled manual labour, thereby increasing inflation.
The fund shall be used to train people at the bottom of the pyramid to be competitive and well-versed with the growing technology. This would eventually attract foreign companies to hire people from India.
NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said this would encourage companies to hire manual labour, along with providing them social security. He remarked that the think tank has already been working on a blueprint of the fund to present in front of the government.
“The objective of our policy should be maximizing employment generation. If you do that, everything will fall in place,” said the NITI Aayog Vice Chairman.
Kumar also added that the aim should be to train people in labour-intensive sectors like construction, housing, garments, and exports.
“Just like that, we should have a labour utilization fund. It doesn’t have to pay salaries but can be used for better training, for paying provident fund contribution and for covering the health costs. In advanced economies, all these things are provided by the public sector,” he said.
