Of the country's total population, 127 million are workable. The government could provide nearly 1.0 per cent of its total population with employment in its existing setup. According to a recent report of the ministry of finance, about 58.1 million people are employed in private sector. So there are 37.2 million workable but unemployed people in the country.
Now the alarming news is that the number of educated but unemployed people is rising. Little educated or uneducated people are migrating abroad as labourers. People with higher education but unemployed coming mostly from the middle class family cannot do menial jobs at home or abroad due to family status. They are a burden on family, society and the nation.
The constitution of the country holds the government responsible for ensuring basic needs of every citizen. Yet the government cannot employ all but it surely can create an environment conducive for absorption of surplus unemployed people. Usually, the government facilitates policy and other environmental supports where people become entrepreneurs (self-employment and employment for others). The public sector development initiatives help involve more labour, increase investment in hands-on skill development programmes / projects, prompting the idle population to be productive and facilitating import substitutions and export orientation etc.
As for creating self-employment / entrepreneurship development, the first and foremost initiative would be increasing general level of confidence / developing confidence of would-be entrepreneurs through building hands-on capacity. This is to influence their decision-making in favour of starting a new business through providing skills, industrial location, start-up financing, mentoring and other financial and non-financial incubatory supports. Special initiative has to be taken to address and overcome their fear of failure. Mentoring is required for setting up a confidence-building environment aimed at overcoming uncertainty of the direction of their business.
Developing their levels of creativity and capacity to innovate has to be strengthened through undertaking newer projects like the existing 'Learning and Earning' project of the ICT division. Undertaking local demand-based development plan in our national budget could be a way forward to engage more labour force with the government development activities. If the government takes an alternative initiative involving people's representatives from union and even ward levels for prioritising development needs of their territory, the task will reflect people's desire for development.
Here, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) could be the best guideline for selection of projects and a move from the existing generalised budgetary system to a specialised one. At the same time harmonisation of the existing taxation system and justification of the duty structure on CKD, SKD, and finished products are required to foster a pro-growth environment in the country.
The country has been getting big but poorly implemented budgets over the past few years. Now the need is for demand-driven, project-specific, motive-oriented and implementable national budget for economic growth and sustainability.
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