Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday hit out at the government on the issue of unemployment, and cited a survey to say that the good days are elusive.
He quoted a media report that said 67 per cent MSMEs were temporarily shut and profits dipped for 66 per cent in FY21.
It also said the over 50 per cent MSMEs surveyed witnessed a decline of more than 25 per cent in their revenues during FY21.
The survey was assigned by the MSME Ministry to SIDBI in September last year to assess the impact of change in MSME classification in 2020 on the sector and losses suffered by MSMEs due to the Covid pandemic. The survey results were shared by the MSME Minister Narayan Rane in reply to a question in Lok Sabha on Thursday.
"The unease of doing business. The pain of jobless youth. The compulsive lies of Modi Government. #KiskeAccheDin," Gandhi said on Twitter.
Gandhi and the Congress have been attacking the government and the prime minister on the issue of unemployment.
India's unemployment rate crept up to nearly 8% in December, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), an independent think tank. It was more than 7% in 2020 and for most of 2021.
"This is way higher than anything seen in India, at least over the last three decades, including the big [economic] crisis of 1991 [when the country did not have enough dollars to pay for imports]," Kaushik Basu, former chief economist of the World Bank told BBC.
Most countries saw joblessness rise in 2020. But India's rate exceeded most emerging economies like Bangladesh (5.3%), Mexico (4.7%) and Vietnam (2.3%), notes Prof Basu.
-PTI/BBC