The recent spat between Kunal Kamra and Bhavish Aggrawal of Ola Electric saw people clearly taking sides. Disgruntled customers of Ola Electric flooded X with their complaints and videos of burning Ola scooters. But some chose to stand with Aggarwal, citing that it was not right to call out the ‘wealth creators’ and the ‘job creators’ of the country.
Smita Prakash of ANI wrote: “Going after wealth creators in India is a movement in which Jaichands of the country are hard at work. Amplify the game of termites or back the job of creators. You make a personal choice via your social media handles. Be a responsible citizen.”
Whatever be the fate of the ‘war of words’ online, offline, the next morning, Ola shares plunged by 8.31%.
Try pointing out a little flaw in the workings of corporate India today, and it soon becomes an issue of national pride. You can’t call out the products, the service or the labour conditions in the companies. You can only be a cheerleader and exclaim, ‘yay, this substandard product is made in India!’
When the Hindenburg report accused the Adani Group of stock manipulation, the same nationalist pride was seen brushing off the claims, accusing the ‘Soros gang’ and berating anyone who tried to understand and explain the issue. The company brought out a 413-page response that basically stated ‘this is an attack on the country’.
Who creates the real wealth and jobs in the country is a question that needs introspection after over 30 years of a liberalised economy.
The job creation myth
Let’s begin with the case of Ola Electric scooters. This company has a turnover of about Rs 5,000 crore, while it is running in losses of Rs 1,000 crore. Last year, it had 3,733 employees and this year in June it was reported that it was going to lay off 400 to 500 employees.
Last year alone, over 10,000 consumers complained against Ola Electric. Now, the consumer rights regulator has slapped a notice on the company.
Does the economy really grow with the growth of Adani? If the economy grew like Adani, the country would have elevated its status from vishwaguru to brahmaandguru (world leader to universe leader).
Take a guess at who provides the most jobs in the country. Yes, it is the defence ministry. It employs about 29 lakh people and held the claim of being the world’s largest employer in 2022 by one estimate. Then there is the Indian railways, which employs about 12 lakh people, gazetted and non-gazetted.
Tata Consultancy Services and Reliance Industries are among the largest private employers, with some six lakh and close to four lakh employees respectively.
Meanwhile, as per the Adani Group’s website, it has over 46,000 people working all across the world. In the last financial year, the group hired just 1,047 new employees.
It is good to remember that Gautam Adani’s personal wealth is growing at 123% annually while jobs at the group are growing at a measly rate of 3%.
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Even now if you are thinking, ‘who would give us jobs if not these private corporates’, sample this:
Karnataka’s entire IT and IT-enabled services sector reportedly employs about 20 lakh people, while the railways employs 12 lakh people – more than half of Karnataka’s IT/ITES sector. And then there is the case of three lakh non-gazetted vacancies in the railways!
This article in the Financial Express last month cleared the job creation myth in its headline, ‘Tata, Reliance, Adani: Corporate India’s top 6 go long on profit, short on jobs’.
The top six corporate groups are earning enough profits but are failing to generate employment opportunities. In the financial year 2024, the revenue of these top six groups grew by 7.3% and their profits by 22.3% while their market capitalisation grew by a staggering 43.8%.
But jobs? -0.2%. Despite growth in profits, jobs are growing in negative! There are 69 companies listed under these six groups. In the financial year 2023, they employed 1.74 million people, which decreased to 1.73 million people in the financial year 2024.
The tax argument
Of course, when you generate so much revenue, you ought to pay taxes! Corporates paying taxes is not a great service to the nation, it is their responsibility, in fact their due. Yet they failed here too this year.
Let’s look at the top ten corporate taxpayers list from last year. Sorry, the Adani Group doesn’t make an appearance here either.
On the top is Reliance Industries, which paid Rs 20,713 crore in taxes. In the second spot is the country’s largest bank, the SBI, which paid Rs 17,649 crore in taxes. The third spot goes to HDFC Bank, which paid tax worth Rs 15,350 crore.
But the interesting thing is this year, despite paying so much in taxes, the country’s middle class is ahead of corporate India. For the first time in Amrit Kaal, the government is earning more revenue from the common taxpayers than from the corporates. In the year 2023-24, the government earned Rs 9,22,000 crore from corporate taxation, while it earned Rs 10,22,000 crore from income tax!
Corporate tax was reduced in 2019 and some estimate that the government has lost Rs 1.44 lakh crore annually because of this.
Layoffs and contractualisation of jobs
The government, especially in the last decade, has gone out of its way to meet the demands of corporations; giving them subsidised land, tax reliefs, relaxed labour laws – all so they can generate jobs, but the jobs are nowhere in sight.
Instead, layoffs are on the rise. Take the IT sector for instance. This year so far, over 1.4 lakh employees worldwide have reportedly lost their jobs. Major national and international corporations have announced layoffs. And the ones who are employed are battling with long hours, overwork and stress.
Another trend that is on the rise is that of contract jobs. Inhuman working hours and paying just the minimum wage is justified – you see recruitment experts claiming that ‘the nature of the job market is changing’ or that the market demands a flexible business model.
All these are just to gloss over the fact that steady employment is declining and they do not expect things to change in the near future.
The last line in the Financial Express article mentioned above states it plainly: “Permanent jobs could just be passe.”
This is a huge betrayal of the lakhs of young men and women desperate to find a job.
This is the condition of the formal sector. What about the informal sector, where 90% of the workforce is employed and which doesn’t guarantee any social security?
Wealth acquirers
If you pay attention, you’d notice that a lot of private companies in the country do not create any wealth – in fact they acquire the wealth already created by the state.
Think about the recent deals involving airports, the sale of public sector companies and oil and gas contracts – isn’t this the wealth belonging to the country? Several private groups have found their footing by exploiting natural and state-bred resources over time. Then why do we call them wealth creators?
Another factor is, what do you, the general public, get in return?
It is well acknowledged that one rupee invested in the railways generates five rupees in the economy. Moreover, the railways connect the remotest – sometimes the poorest – people of the country to its economy.
Similarly, take the case of public sector banks. The SBI not just employs over 2.3 lakh people, it also gives banking services to over 50 crore customers.
LIC shares 90% of its profit with its policyholders. It invests in almost all big institutions, including private companies in the country. In fact, LIC as of early last year held an investment of Rs 722 billion in five Adani companies.
Yet the public sector is treated like a stepchild.
Maybe we should ask a different question. Instead of asking who creates wealth in the country, we should be asking who creates well-being in the country.
Who do you look up to for jobs? Who provides a good product or services at reasonable prices? Who listens to your problems and resolves your complaints? Who is providing affordable healthcare in the country? Who cares about your children’s education? Who is opening schools and colleges?
Nobody?
Then what’s the point of creating a few wealth creators who don’t contribute to your well-being?
Kavita Kabeer is a writer and satirist.
