Industry and Services sector transformation agenda implemnetation still at take off stage
In the three year agenda released in 2017, NITI Aayog noted that "unemployment is the lesser of India’s problems. The more serious problem, instead, is severe underemployment. A job that one worker can perform is often performed by two or more workers. In effect, those in the workforce are employed, but they are overwhelmingly stuck in low-productivity, low-wage jobs...Therefore, what is needed is the creation of high-productivity, high-wage jobs." The action agenda therefore emphasized on increased emergence of larger, organized-sector firms that can create high paying jobs. To meet this end, promoting exports was considered a better option rather than trying to substitute imports by producing in India. The agenda paper accordingly highlighted that "A focus on the domestic market through an import-substitution strategy, however attractive it may seem, would give rise to a group of relatively small firms behind a high wall of protection. They will not on...