India, March 20 -- With a labour force participation rate of 52.5% and a working age population of 63.4% in 2013, India still had over 40 crore unemployed individuals. This number may include those in disguised, seasonal and structural unemployment or underemployment. The latest report by the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy claimed that the unemployment rate at the end of February, 2018 was 6.1% or about 3.1 crore in absolute terms. Skill development programmes have managed to bring to par a significant number of unemployed youth in terms of training and skill. However, those numbers still remain a minuscule proportion of the actual number of unemployed persons.

Agrarian distress is driving greater number of domestic migrants to...