Mudra, Modi government's face-saver on jobs, gets higher allocation

Jaitley has allocated Rs 3 lakh crore for MUDRA, a nearly 20 per cent rise from the last year when the allocation was Rs 2.44 lakh crore.

Job creation has become a major challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had promised to create 10 million jobs a year during his campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. While nearly 10 million Indians enter the workforce every year, emerging technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence are expected to take away jobs in several sectors.

However, employment numbers could increase significantly if a labour ministry proposal to include self-employed people under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) in the data is implemented. That would give the government's job-creation credentials a boost ahead of the 2019 general election.


The MUDRA scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 8, 2015 with an objective to fund the unfunded. It provides access to institutional finance to small business units. It has helped in creating 5.5 crore jobs with industrialised states being major beneficiaries, a report by SKOCH said.

Recently, a spat broke out over a report that said 5.5 million people would be added to the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) network in the current fiscal, reflecting employment growth. Critics said EPFO enrollment did not necessarily mean job creation.