CPI(M) slams Centre’s Employment Linked Incentive Scheme

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Thursday strongly opposed the Union Cabinet’s approval of the Employment Linked Incentive Scheme, terming it a move designed to benefit large corporate houses at the expense of workers.

In a statement issued by the party’s Polit Bureau the CPI(M) demanded immediate scrapping of the ELI scheme.

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The Left party accused the BJP-led Central government of engaging in crony capitalism, claiming the scheme promotes insecure and low-quality employment while subsidizing the costs of private employers, including statutory liabilities, through public money. “This is another attempt by the BJP-led Central government to benefit the corporates at the cost of the workers. It is yet another example of its cronyism,” the party said in its statement.

The Union Cabinet Wednesday approved the ELI scheme with an outlay of Rs 1.07 lakh crore, claiming that the launch of the scheme will create 3.5 crore jobs over the next two years through social security schemes run by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). However, the CPI(M) claims that the “ELI scheme is another deceptive scheme of transferring public funds to the corporates veiled in the promise of enhancing job creation, employability and social security to delude the youth”.

“This scheme promotes fragile and precarious jobs, subsidising investment cost, production costs, labour costs and statutory liabilities of both domestic and foreign employers from the public exchequer,” the Left party alleged.