Economist Amit Bhaduri on Friday said government incentives to corporate entities have adversely affected job creation as well as employment environment even as the gross domestic product grew tremendously in the past three decades.
The corporates’ return favour in the form of funding political parties is more vicious than individual corruption as the former directly affects governance, he said.
Prof. Bhaduri, a professor emeritus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, was delivering a lecture on ‘The Interface Between Development and Ecology; Conflict and Cooperation’, at the B.V. Kakkilaya Inspired Orations – 2014 jointly organised by Hosatu magazine, M.S. Krishnan Memorial Trust and Samadarshi Vedike in association with Mangalore University here.
While all the subsidies to the public put together come to about Rs. 2 lakh crore a year, subsidies to corporates in various forms come to Rs. 5.8 lakh crore, Prof. Bhaduri pointed out.
The governments have given away almost all natural resources — land, river, mountains, forests, minerals etc. — to corporates, which actually snatched employment opportunities from the people. For every job in a corporate, six jobs in rural India is lost, he pointed out.
While incentivising corporates was a major reason for reduced job creation, privatisation of government services and primacy to international markets were the other reasons, Prof. Bhaduri said. Complete lack of social security from the government had made the poor poorer and drove the poorer to the brink of committing suicides.
Barriers of language (lack of English knowledge) as well as caste/religion too played a role in the weaker sections not getting employment opportunities, Prof. Bhaduri said.
He said the day had come where an ordinary individual could not contest elections even as political parties got funding from corporates.
Most of the elected representatives were ‘crorepatis’ and a kind of oligarchy had set in, Prof. Bhaduri regretted. This kind of growth would not work in the country as it was based on increased inequality, he said.
