Congress demands white paper on government’s employment strategy

New Delhi, May 26 (IANS) The Congress on Friday said "bravado, rhetoric and hyperbole" were the hallmark of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government which has completed three years in office and demanded a white paper on its employment strategy.

Addressing a media conference, Congress MP and former union minister Kamal Nath flayed the Modi government for spending Rs 2,000 crore on the celebrations of its three years in office when the economy was in a shambles.

"Bravado, rhetoric and hyperbole are the hallmark of the years of Modi government. Peddling lies and celebrating non-performance, propaganda and platitude are its recognition. It has been only 'bhashan' (speeches) and 'aswashan' (assurances)," Nath said.

"The biggest challenge faced by the country is unemployment and thanks to this government, employment is at a 50 year low and lowest in the last seven years."

"Against Modi's promise of 2 crore jobs annually, only 1.35 lakh jobs were created in 2015. We need to create over 34 crore jobs by 2028 but what is the state of domestic investment and bank credit, both are at their historic lowest," the former minister added.

The party demanded to know the government's plans to counter the growing joblessness.

"The IT sector is facing joblessness and will be losing 20,000 jobs annually. We want to know the government's plans to counter disruption in employment creation due to innovation in technology"

"We demand a white paper on the government's employment strategy. The country is not interested in speeches and assurances, we want this government to come out with hard facts on how it plans to create jobs for the next two years," he concluded.