In LiveMint, Niranjan Rajadhyaksha argues that Indian policy makers must encourage the creation of small and medium entreprises to generate 100 million plus jobs over the next decade.

Excerpts below:

"The Indian economy needs to generate 100 million jobs over the next decade—or perhaps even more. There are three components to this big number. India has a growing labour force because of its young population. People are leaving farms for better opportunities in sectors with higher productivity. Women who left the labour force in recent years are likely to rejoin as social norms hopefully change. All these should ideally be absorbed in organized enterprises with decent wages as well as formal employment contracts.

Global experience shows that such an expansion in job opportunities usually happens through the growth of SMEs, say those employing between 100 to 500 workers. India is not well placed here. Economists have for long pointed out to the problem of the “missing middle" in our enterprise landscape—between large established enterprises at one end and tiny suboptimal enterprises on the other hand. India does not have enough firms in the middle of the distribution."

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