Labour activists and unions have debunked the State government’s claims of having created more than eight lakh jobs in seven months in the organised sector.
Labour unions claimed on Saturday, a day after the State released the latest data, that the intention of the government drive was to register eligible units, raise the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) exposure to the stock market and increase its annual incremental corpus in equities.
“The statistics are not a true reflection of the real employment situation in Maharashtra. These jobs were created long ago, but only surfaced during the drive to register the eligible units past six months. The idea to highlight selective numbers is to give a favourable picture of the bleak job situation in the State,” said Uday Bhat, general secretary of the Maharashtra Rajya Sarvashramik Mahasangh.
As per the EPFO statistics, the State created eight lakh jobs in the organised sector in seven months, topping a list of six states, including Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
“The country has seen creation of 39.36 lakh jobs in the organised sector during the period from September 2017 to March 2018. Maharashtra has bagged the first position by creating 8,17,302 employment opportunities in this sector,” Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had said on Friday.
Labour activists said the EPFO is merely focused on increasing its basket of equities and investing big in stocks. The organisation, working under the Union Labour Ministry, has been investing in stocks since 2015. Its reported corpus in the share market has since increased to ₹1.2 trillion, of which it is estimated to invest 15% or ₹18,000 crore in stocks this year. “All its initiatives are driven towards the goal of meeting the 15% cap and increasing its numbers in the stock market. In this light, the Maharashtra numbers are completely bogus,” said Mr. Bhat.
