Growth needed to overcome industrial tension: Montek

Worried over the industrial unrest witnessed during the two-day nation-wide strike, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today today said revival in economic growth will help combat industrial tension.

"I don't want to comment on today's strike. There are other people to comment on that. Limited point that I am making is on reviving industrial output. And when the industry is back into a normal state, many other tensions on many issues will go down," he said.

Ahluwalia was talking to reporters on the sidelines of an event on Leveraging Employment Generation in the 12th Five Year Plan organised by FICCI and Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR).

About 11 trade unions have called a strike on February 20 and 21 against spiralling prices, strict enforcement of labour laws, creation of social security net for workers in unorganised sector as well as raising minimum wages to Rs 10,000 per month, among others.

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Industry body Assocham yesterday said the GDP may lose about Rs 26,000 crore due to the strike which has impacted industrial activity, and services such as banking and finance. Addressing the conference, Ahluwalia said there is a need for public private partnership (PPP) for employment generation and skill development.

"We need to encourage public private partnership for skill development and employment generation. We also need to look at why Indian manufacturing is not doing well. We need to do some hard thinking," he said.

He said enough number of people are not skilled in India and there is a need to increase skill development. IMAR Director General Santosh Mehrotra said there are challenges in 12th Plan to create jobs, and the objective to skill 500 million people as per the National Skill Development programme seems difficult.