The central government is constantly working to increase new job opportunities in the country. In the last budget, it brought an internship scheme in this direction. This time too, the emphasis is expected to be on new jobs in the budget. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) also believes that more measures may be announced to promote employment generation in the upcoming annual budget for the financial year 2025-26. The industry organization emphasized that large-scale employment generation is important to make the young population productive and promote inclusive growth in the world's most populous country. 

CII gave 7 suggestions to the government 

The industry body has suggested a 7-point agenda to harness India's demographic dividend, which includes an integrated national employment policy, support to labour-intensive sectors, and setting up of an international transport authority, among other targeted measures. India's average age is just 29 years. India is a young country, and is set to add 133 million people to its working-age population by 2050. CII said the government may consider starting internship programmes in government offices in rural areas for college-educated youth. It argued that this initiative would create short-term employment opportunities in government offices while bridging the gap between education and vocational skills. The programme would also help increase the manpower resources available for effective implementation of various rural programmes and government initiatives. 

There is a need to change the income tax rules as well 

CII has also proposed to introduce a new provision in place of section 80JJAA under the Income Tax Rules to promote new employment. The new provision should continue as a Chapter VIA deduction from gross total income, which is available even if the taxpayer opts for a concessional tax regime. It has proposed an integrated national employment policy, which may subsume employment generation schemes currently being implemented by various ministries/states. CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said that along with increasing employment, India also has to ensure that productivity increases. 

An expert committee will have to be constituted

India's Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR) needs to be brought down from its current level of 4.1. We need to set benchmarks to measure this. In fact, an expert committee could be set up in the Union Budget to study this in more detail and recommend further measures.