Two days ago, a video was widely circulated on social media. The context? A crowd of Bihar Police exam aspirants at the Anugraha Narayan Road Railway Station in Jharkhand, jeered and mocked a girl seated inside the train, visibly distressed.

The sight of thousands of exam aspirants awaiting a seat in the train struck a chord. What is the state of employment in the country? This question especially hit me when, today, on August 15, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana. 

PM Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana is an ambitious mega employment package of Rs 1 lakh crore that targets the creation of more than 3.5 crore jobs over a two-year period.

But larger questions are looming. Is this just any other employment generation scheme? How feasible is this — too ambitious? Too populist? Let’s find out. 

A pre-poll tactic? 

When asked about the feasibility of newly launched PM Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana, Chitranjan Kumar, a Public policy researcher, pessimistically said, “3.5 crore jobs is a distant dream! This is an electoral gimmick, with state assembly polls lined up in various states, including Bihar.” However, he applauded the first segment of the scheme, as it motivates the youth and gives them a sense of financial security. 

The first segment of the scheme focuses on those who are first-time employees registered with the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). These employees would receive two separate installments equal to one month's EPF wage, with a ceiling of Rs 15,000. With a focus on manufacturing specifically, the second segment is to promote more employment in all industries. Employers who hire employees earning up to Rs 1 lakh will receive incentives.

According to Mint, the official unemployment rate was 5.6% in June 2025, despite ‘sustained’ government initiatives aimed at addressing unemployment. But how sustainable are they? Chitranjan believes that a stark knowledge gap and lack of skill development training answer this. “There is the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) now, but the previous batches are going to have a tough time aligning their work with the demands of the job market. They have to upskill themselves, and the government has to equip them for it”, he said. 

“Though incentives are being given, now even to new entrants in the private sector, in the long run, this is not a sustainable option.” He cited the example of the Bihar Student Credit Card (BSCC) scheme, whereby students can get low-interest loans of up to Rs 4 lakh for higher studies, but poor placements and fund misuse have marred its impact. 

“Numbers over quality”? 

Youth make up around 83% of India’s unemployed population, and shockingly, the share of unemployed youth with secondary education has doubled from 35.2% in 2000 to 65.7% in 2022. Moreover, India has a labour force growth rate of 8-10 million annually. 

Simran Saurabh, a UPSC aspirant from Delhi, speaking to EdexLive, reiterated, “The scheme is a well-designed and well-intentioned effort, but the numbers are a bit overly ambitious.” According to her, even if the scheme hits the target, a massive employment gap is likely. 

With more people struggling to find work, the difference between official data and ground reality is appalling. She noted, “Government jobs created in the past have often reported jobs created by counting existing positions, including those that receive incentives. So the numbers might be swayed.” 

Saurabh also took a jab at the 'incentive culture'. In addition to the existing incentive-based employment generation schemes, the government has now introduced the Employment-Linked Incentive Scheme. “The incentives given are for two years or four years in the manufacturing sector. What happens once these incentives end remains uncertain. These might create a spike in jobs right now, but will also lead to a slump later,” she said. 

A 7% growth rate indicates that only 8–9 million jobs are created each year, which is less than the 12 million needed, illustrating a contradiction in jobless growth. “The emphasis is on numbers and not quality of jobs”, she noted.

Simran, who has been devotedly preparing for UPSC for the past two years, says that if she doesn’t make it to her dream job, she might find it hard to find a job elsewhere as she is not equipped with the skillsets that her fallback option may demand. This joyana may not help people like her who are looking for re-skilling, while also preparing for the government job. 

“Another populist tactic”?

While the new employment scheme promises 3.5 crore jobs in two years, experts caution that job creation cannot be sustained without addressing underlying economic hurdles. Demand in the market remains sluggish, global trade ties are uncertain, and the manufacturing sector is slowing amid low investment. 

Tanvir Aeijaz, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Ramjas College, University of Delhi, and Vice-chairman, Centre for Multilevel Federalism, New Delhi, speaking to EdexLive noted, “To generate jobs, the government needs to first create demand by resolving the pressing issues in the economy.” 

Prof Aeijaz calls the Yojana very populist. “Given the ambivalence at the global level — with the global market in flux, trade with the US under cloud, uncertainty in bilateral ties with other major powers like Russia and China, we are in a precarious situation”, he stated. 

Waking up to the ground reality… but how? 

“The government must wake up!" says Chitranjan. “It must invest in R&D where the expenditure has hit a low. Employment generation and skill development cannot happen overnight. But the government doesn’t want to wait and invest in such long-term programmes, so they focus on short-term incentive-based approaches to employment generation,” he noted. 

Prof Aeijaz further noted that the government has to be welfarist rather than populist. “In order to create demand in the market, it must invest to set up institutions, and provide subsidies, which will then reflect in job creation”.  

According to him, the manufacturing sector is now in a slowdown. He observed that there is a need to emphasise service and manufacturing sectors alike, and capex (capital expenditure) needs a big push to propel skill development.

“We have to learn from the Neo-Keynesian approach that the European countries are working on,” he said. For the unversed, the Neo-Keynesian approach emphasises government interventions rather than waiting for the market to self-correct. “Public investment is very important in the formal sector, education, and activities backing the formal sector. There is also a need to re-examine the labour laws,” he added. 

Simran drew attention to a few miserable stats. “The doctor-to-patient ratio is very low in medical institutions of the country, and the teacher-student ratio is very low in government schools in states like UP and Bihar. So, why not create jobs there?” she said. 

Though PM Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana has sown seeds of hope in the youth, it is to be seen if it will succeed in securing futures or end up being another public policy for the competitive exam aspirants to cram.