NEW DELHI : Calling for sustained dialogue between policymakers and the young generation, former NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said that the rise of Artificial Intelligence has created uncertainty and frustration among Indian youth regarding future job opportunities and employability. In an interview with PTI Videos, Kumar said that India’s youth is very uncertain and very unclear about the future because of Artificial Intelligence (AI). “This is generating fears of both employability and employment generation,” he said while replying to a question about youth’s anger and recent NEET-related protests. Kumar said the recent periodic labour force survey (PLFS) data has shown that the youth unemployment rate in India for the 1529 age group has stood at around 20 per cent. “Now, if you are faced with their circumstances, then of course you will be frustrated. And, I think this is why we need to have an on-going dialogue with the youth,” he said. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) Monthly Bulletin June 2026, Unemployment Rate among females aged 15- 29 years was 20.7 per cent and 14.6 per cent for males in the age group in the month. Kumar also suggested that Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who is heading a task force to reform India’s examination system, should engage with the youth to find out what is bothering them and to somehow give an assurance to the young people of this country that the future is good for them. Last month, a nationwide protest movement by youth, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), led to the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. India needs to grow higher than 8% to become an upper middle-income nation by 2047 Asked what India needs to do to achieve its ambitious target of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2047, Kumar said India must now target to grow at higher than 8 per cent. “In-fact, the target should be to grow in double digits. That, it can do this is proven by many states, which have grown at double digits for the last few years,” he said, adding that the process should be replicated across other states, and India should not be treated as one homogeneous economy because it is not so. According to Kumar, what India needs is a development strategy for each state to grow in double digits, to be able to reach the aspiration of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2047. “Some years you will grow at less than eight, and some times more than 10. But China has shown that the whole economy could grow at 10 per cent for 30 years,” he observed. Kumar also noted that strengthening the domestic economy will also be India’s best foreign policy. Recently, four Asian countries, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Jordan, were upgraded from lower middle-income countries to upper middle-income countries by the World Bank. India, despite its strengths, missed the mark. Asked why the share of manufacturing in GDP remained stuck around 16-17 per cent for around two decades, Kumar said, “We were not able to achieve the ease of doing business to promote the private enterprise as much as we should have done.” He lamented that it is quite shocking to know that India’s share of global exports has remained less than 2 per cent for the last three decades, and the manufacturing sector is actually only employing 10- 11 per cent of the labour force. “India has been an export pessimist for a long time. “Our manufacturing sector should target the world market and not focus only on the domestic market,” Kumar said, adding that change has not happened, as a result of which our manufacturing sector has not been able to grow. The eminent economist emphasised that the government has to work with the private sector to identify a few sectors in which all the relevant stakeholders should be focused on raising India’s share in the world market. “But I think a major problem today is that India has one export policy for the whole country. Now this is impossible. What is good for export promotion for Punjab can hardly be relevant for Tamil Nadu. So what we need today is state-specific export promotion policies, and each state must work to design and implement such a policy,” Kumar suggested. He said the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), a central government department under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which is looking after export promotion, should work with each state to identify its comparative and competitive advantage, and then create the conditions for sharply ramping up exports from each State. “It is absolutely necessary for India to increase its export share in the world market because if we do not do that, we will not be able to expand our manufacturing capacity, and if we do not expand our manufacturing capacity, we will not be able to generate the employment opportunities that are desperately required,” Kumar said. (Source: PTI)
