*NEW DELHI: An official survey reveals, India’s unemployment rate rose to a45-year high during 2017-18, the Business Standard newspaper reported onThursday, delivering a blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi just monthsbefore what is expected to be a closely fought general election.*
A political controversy over the survey erupted after the acting chairmanand another member of the body that reviewed the jobs data resigned, sayingthere had been a delay in its scheduled December release and alleginginterference by other state agencies.
The assessment by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) conductedbetween July 2017 and June 2018 showed the unemployment rate stood at 6.1per cent, the highest since 1972-73, the newspaper reported.
That year, when India was just coming out of a war with Pakistan and hit byglobal oil shocks like other oil-importing countries, the unemployment ratewas 5.18 per cent.
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Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the main opposition Congress party who thepolls show is closing in on Modi’s lead in the election due by May, saidthe job report showed “a national disaster”. – Reuters
