By now everyone is quite familiar with NDTV’s reporting standards or the lack of them. NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan last night conducted a debate claiming government’s jobs promises remain unfulfilled, especially, with a focus on a statement by Piyush Goyal regarding Railway ‘ecosystem’.
Tonight at 9: the Railways Minister now claims that 2.5 lakh people will be employed by his ministry alone in the next 2 years. Last year he had said the railways could create 10 lakh jobs in one year. What’s happening with India’s jobs? pic.twitter.com/24GYQauaeI
— Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) January 24, 2019
She had claimed that last year Union Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal had said that the railways could create 10 lakh jobs in one year whereas he now puts the figure at 2.5 lakhs. Prima facie this appears as if the railways have been able to create only 25% of the jobs it had set out to promise a year back.
However, what Nidhi has conveniently chosen to not tell her viewers is that her claims on Piyush Goyal’s statement from a year back are partial. Piyush Goyal in his October 2017 statement had said that the ‘Rail ecosystem’ can create 10 lakh jobs a year and even that, was twisted by Nidhi.
That means not the Indian Railways directly, but other ancillary industries associated with the railways, which build the ecosystem, including contractual labour forces, can create as many as 10 lakh jobs.
On Wednesday, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal had declared 2.5 lakh fresh jobs in Indian Railways.
#WATCH: Railways Minister Piyush Goyal announces 2.50 Lakh additional vacancies in the Railways, says “New job opportunities for 2.25-2.50 Lakh people has been created, process for 1.50 Lakh vacancies is underway. So Railways, in a way, will be providing 4 Lakh jobs.” pic.twitter.com/Oeccbuk3wu
— ANI (@ANI) January 23, 2019
In the above clip from the press briefing, Goyal is heard saying about 2.5 lakh jobs will be created in Railways alone. “Even now process for about 1.5 lakh vacancies is under process. Over and above that, if we try and calculate estimates for the next two years, then about 1 lakh people will retire in the next two years. That way, approximately 2.25 – 2.5 lakh employment opportunities over and above the 1 lakh which is already under process, leading to an estimated 4 lakh job creation in Railways alone,” Goyal had informed.
Nidhi, however, chose not to disclose the fact that when Goyal spoke of Railways creating 10 lakh jobs, he meant the ecosystem and not Indian Railways on a standalone basis.
Last year, Railways Minister @PiyushGoyal had said that the Indian Railways ecosystem can create a million jobs. IR has already done its bit on hiring – almost 3.5L jobs on offer.
There was a full debate in media ascribing all million to IR ? pic.twitter.com/l5URozQEqS
— Aashish Chandorkar (@c_aashish) January 25, 2019
As seen in the above video, Piyush Goyal in October 2017 had said (emphasis added), “My own sense is that may not be directly in a job in the railways which then gets reflected in the numbers but certainly through engaging people in working in variety of different areas across the system, not less than a million jobs can be created in less than twelve months. Only in the Railways alone and the ecosystem around the Railways.”
Nidhi, very cleverly skipped the part that Goyal, when he talked about creating a million jobs in October 2017, he meant the ecosystem, which includes direct and indirect jobs associated with the Railways. Whereas in his January 23 press briefing, Goyal is talking about creating 2.5 lakh jobs in Indian Railways alone.
This is not the first time Nidhi has indulged in spreading misinformation. In April 2017, Razdan had conducted an entire debate based on fake news. Prior to that, Nidhi was again spotted parroting a lie. It was a debate in which the focus was a “book” written by noted abusive social media troll turned lying journalist Swati Chaturvedi.
As usual, at the time of this report, neither NDTV nor Nidhi have issued any clarification on the lie peddled on the debate last night.
