According to the recently released Budget 2019-20 documents, the central government of India has created more than 3.81 lakh jobs over the last two years across various organizations. 

About 32,38,397 people worked in the Central Government organizations across the country as of March 1, 2017. Two years later, on March 1, 2019, the total strength went up to 36, 19, 596, according to the recently announced Budget by Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister of India.

An estimated 98,999 people were hired by the Ministry of Railways since 2017 and about 80,000 new jobs were created in the police force. Also, the indirect tax departments saw a growth of 53,000 jobs and the direct tax departments saw an increase in their employee strength by 29,935. 

The departments that come under the science and technology ambit saw a rise in the number of jobs created. About 7,743 jobs in the Department of Science and Technology, 10,000 in the Department of Atomic Energy, 2,250 in the Department of Telecommunications and 3,981 in the Department of Water Resources. 

The other areas where new jobs were created, including the Culture Ministry, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers’ Welfare and 1,189 in the Civil Aviation Ministry. 

“This is critical to the development of a self-reliant aviation industry, creating aspirational jobs in aviation finance, besides leveraging the business opportunities available in India’s financial Special Economic Zones (SEZs),” said the Finance Minister in her budget speech, speaking of the aviation industry as a business opportunity for the country. 

Apart from increasing the number of jobs in the government and working on the future roadmap to build a pipeline of skilled individuals in the country, the budget documents also highlighted the need to upskill the youth of the country to succeed overseas with skill-building related to languages and technical know-how. 

Creation of jobs continues to remain a contentious issue that is brought up by the ruling party to portray how the country is doing well under its administration. And, at the same time, the opposition parties step up the narrative of rising unemployment and use it as a political platform on which to run election campaigns.