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Exporting Manpower? Our exports have been falling, month after month, for the past 18 months in a row. But this is not unique to India With rapidly shrinking World Trade, exports of nearly all countries around the world are falling. Barring a few exceptions, economies of all the countries are declining. So it came as a surprise to read a news report (BL / 20 Feb ) , that , despite the fact that Malaysia has 2.1 million registered foreign workers and 1.7 million illegal foreign workers , it signed a deal with Bangladesh to hire another 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers , over the next 3 years! As expected, local trade unions have criticized this deal. Now let us not start putting together a strategy for Manpower Export, despite the fact that of all the countries in the World, India has the largest number of its citizens working abroad (legal illegal). I believe, close to 22 million persons of Indian origin, with some 7 million in Gulf Countries. But trade unions and political parties everywhere are vehemently opposed to migrant workers who take away jobs from local residents. Even EU, which accepted some 1 million refugees from war-torn Syria/ Iraq/ Afghanistan, in 2015, have started repatriating what it terms as "Economic Migrants " seeking " better life " in EU, as distinct from political refugees But that is not stopping 3000 such "refugees "(political or economic), from forcing their way into EU, every day ! Within India, we have seen in the past (and continue to witness, currently ) , economically backward people ( euphemism for " poor ") , migrating to cities in other relatively affluent States , in search of livelihood , occasionally causing resentment among local citizens. So far , such inter-state migrations have not caused any serious problem because of our Unifying forces of religion / language / culture / heritage / traditions and our Constitution. But with annual addition of some 12 million persons (including some 3.5 million graduates ), to our legions of jobseekers , things could get ugly - especially since neither the Public nor the Private sector , can create this many jobs every year ! We need to find ways in which these millions can become "Self Employed " I hope that each and every announcement that Shri Jaitley makes in his budget speech on 29 Feb , would lead to creation of " Self Employment " in the economically backward States of India. With most of our States being the size of many EU countries , we may not be in a position to Export Manpower , even across our State boundaries , forget across the International borders! For Indian Federal structure to hold together, we must work on the double to reduce inequality between States !
on Feb 24, 2016