Making a strong pitch for skill development and job creation, BJP treasurer and Rajya Sabha MP Piyush Goyal on Monday told the National Council of the Confederation of Indian Industry that creation of 200 million jobs in 10 years would be BJP’s priority.

He said affordable housing alone could provide the required spur. “If the country took up the agenda of creating 100 million affordable homes then 15 million jobs could easily be created every year,” he said. He referred to the “Gujarat growth model” and how his party’s PM nominee Narendra Modi should be given an opportunity to govern with an absolute majority.

Outlining priority sectors, Goyal said India should target 65 million annual influx of tourists from the present 6.8 million. Maintaining the party’s opposition to multi-brand FDI in retail, he said unless the country’s manufacturing base was strengthened, it would not allow foreign brands to enter India.

“National Skill Development Council had not been able to get funds it had been promised. It is regrettable that only 3 lakh people had been imparted skills against a target of millions. There is a need to dovetail skill development of 200 million people with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme so that people could actually be provided with funds to gain skills,” he said. Four areas where skills could be built, he said, were tourism, manufacturing, housing and infrastructure. On land acquisition, he said the government should have increased compensation and simplified procedures but “ended up making the law so draconian that had not BJP insisted on keeping few sectors out of its purview, the entire business would have come to a standstill.”

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