Maharashtra added 30 pc of new jobs in country in last five years

Mumbai: Helped by relaxations in labour laws, Maharashtra has upped its share in new job creation in the country to more than 30 per cent over the last five years, a senior official said on Thursday.

The state was ahead in the implementations of relaxations like exempting units employing less than 20 people from Factories Act and also making the Shop and Establishment Act non-applicable for others, said Praveen Pardeshi, chief executive of Maharashtra Institution for Transformation (Mitra).

“One-third of the jobs created in the last five years was in Maharashtra,” the former bureaucrat said, attributing the claim to a recent survey.

Speaking at an event organised by MEDC (Maharashtra Economic Development Council), Pardeshi said the government of India has also realised the importance of such interventions, and has now moved towards a regime where fixed work contracts and hiring and firing of workers will be possible.

Such interventions help the ease of doing business (EODB) but more importantly, they help create jobs, which is very crucial, Pardeshi said.

He said Maharashtra has more work to do on this front, including on the Industrial Disputes Act and also the Mathadi Act.

The state is aiming to achieve the milestone of USD 1-trillion GSDP by 2028 as against the set target of 2030, Pardeshi said, acknowledging that this will be a challenging one.

The state’s current growth rate is about 7 per cent, and the same will have to accelerate to over 17 per cent to achieve the target, he added.