Opposing the Employment-Linked Incentive (ELI) Scheme announced by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday (July 1, 2025), the Left parties called it yet another attempt to favour the big corporates and demanded that it be withdrawn immediately.
The scheme with an outlay of ₹99,446 crore is aimed at providing incentive to the private sector for hiring new recruits.
Opposing the scheme, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau in a statement in New Delhi said it was yet another example of the government’s cronyism. “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.”
It 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 party said.
The CPI(M) pointed out that the government had brought in the scheme while simultaneously cutting down allocations for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) which provided employment to rural poor and ignoring the demand to formulate such employment guarantee Act for urban areas. At the same time, it was providing huge concessions in the name of incentives to the corporates.
The CPI(M) demanded that the government expand public services and fill the vacancies in the government sector, instead of subsidising the corporate class.
The All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) pointed out that it wouldn’t be the first time that the government has introduced such a scheme. “Earlier, the Production Linked Incentive [PLI] Scheme and the Capital Expenditure Incentive Scheme were introduced, both disproportionately benefiting employers. The government has failed to release transparent data on how many workers have gained meaningful employment, fair wages or job security through these schemes,” AIFB General Secretary G. Devarajan said.
Published – July 02, 2025 09:33 pm IST
