As Karnataka gears up for the crucial Assembly polls on May 10, there are a plethora of politicians, analysts and psephologists predicting a wide range of outcomes. There is a growing consensus that bridging class-based inequities and addressing economic issues will be key.

A recent NDTV and CSDS-Lokniti survey reported that unemployment (28 per cent) is the biggest concern for Karnataka voters followed by poverty (25 per cent).

A separate large survey of over 40,000 respondents by Eedina, a Kannada news outlet, further corroborates these apprehensions of the underserved classes.

Livelihood issues

A senior commentator has surmised that this election is expected to be influenced by post-Covid loss of livelihood and employment, rising economic inequality, and high inflation. Another eminent author and journalist has emphasised that rapid development of infrastructure and job creation across the State are essential to address unemployment.

There is an urgent need for creating 1 million jobs over the next few years among youth. Furthermore, only 14 per cent of women are gainfully employed, highlighting the need to address gender disparities as well. While thousands of youths have been trained at the State’s ITIs and MSDCs, many do not find gainful employment. A YuWaah-UNICEF study on Karnataka says it is important to supplement employment generation with entrepreneurship as a higher-educated Indian youth is more than five times as likely to be unemployed as an uneducated one.

Curbing migration

To generate local employment spread across hundreds of small towns and villages and prevent distress migration, the State needs to promote mass entrepreneurship. For example, a successful state-wide entrepreneurship programme was supported by the Employment Generation Mission in Assam in 2012-17. Over a thousand grassroots enterprises were set up by helping them get access to bank financing and guidance from expert industry mentors. This resulted in the creation of more than 55,000 jobs within three years.

Karnataka will have to evolve similar models of collaboration between multiple stakeholders to suit the needs of its more advanced level of industrialisation. For instance, the mining district of Ballary in northern Karnataka, has immense potential for grassroots entrepreneurship, according to a recent study conducted by BYST.

Political parties must outline a concrete action plan to create jobs through mass entrepreneurship in urban areas as well as rural hinterlands.

The writer is Founding and Managing Trustee, Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust

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