And the upcoming budget has a unique opportunity to take advantage of the covid policy window by amplifying existing long-term thinking on formal job creation and employability. The budget for 2021-22 must build on recent reforms like labour, agriculture and education to grant freedom to our firms and citizens to improve their productivity. Given the covid-induced shortfall in taxes, I propose six non-fiscal, “freedom" reforms for formal job creation and employability:One, mandatory payroll confiscation levels that are higher than the savings rate breed informality. Despite the Atmanirbhar Bharat announcement to deregulate online education, only seven of India’s 1,000 universities are licensed for online learning. This is particularly tragic because over 200 foreign universities operate online in India and nobody can or should stop them.

Source: Mint December 29, 2020 15:08 UTC