Post independence, the issue of employment has had different resonance during different Plan periods. In the initial years of development planning, unemployment was not expected to emerge as a major problem. It was assumed that reasonable growth rate and labour intensive sectors would prevent any increase in unemployment and this expectation continued from one Five Year Plan to another during the 1950's and 1960's. However, the economy grew at a slower pace (around 3.5 as against the planned rate of 5 per cent per annum) and the labour force grew more rapidly than the increase in employment , doubling the unemployment figures during 1956-1972, from around 5 to 10 million and increasing the unemployment rate from 2.6 to 3.8 per cent (Papola, 1992). 32.2 The above figures were however estimates in absence of any comprehensive survey or records. The availability of detailed information vis a vis the earlier estimates, from 1972-73 (NSSO Quinquennial Surveys ) changed the official approach to employment in mid 1970’s. It was increasingly realised that economic growth alone could not be relied upon to tackle the issue of unemployment any more . Therefore, a number of employment generation & and poverty alleviation programs were started since fifth five year plan (1974-79).Summary of unemployment rates over NSS rounds i.While employment growth has been lower in 2009-10 and 2011-12, unemployment rate in India continued to hover around 2 per cent under usual status (ps+ss) and fell under Current Daily Status (CDS). Although the unemployment rate may be lower than what is prevailing now in developed economies, the number of unemployed is significant in absolute terms. During 2004-05, the number of unemployed people was 11.3 million, which declined to 9.8 million in 2009-10 but again increased to 10.8 million in 2011-12 under usual status (ps+ss) (UPS(adj). However, based on the CDS the number of unemployed persond ays declined from 34.3 million in 2004-05 to 28.0 million in 2009-10 and further to 24.7 million in 2011-12. Thus there is steep reduction in unemployment rate under CDS from 8.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 5.6 per cent in 2011-12 .Overall, unemployment rates were lower in 2009-10 under each approach vis-a-vis 2004-05 and during 2011-12 compared to 2009-10, as per UPS(adj) approach, it remained invariant for rural males (2 per cent), rural females (2 per cent) and urban males (3 per cent) but decreased by 1 percentage point for urban females (from 6 per cent in 2009-10 to 5 per cent in 2011-12).The fall in unemployment despite marginal growth in employment in 2009-10 (1.1 million jobs created PS+SS, 2004-05 to 2009-10) and 2011-12 (13.9 million jobs created PS+SS, 2009-10 to 2011-12) , compared to 2004-05 (59.9 million jobs created PS+SS, 1999-2000 to 2004-05) could also be on account of the demographic dividend, as an increasing proportion of the young population opts for education rather than participating in the labour market. This is reflected in the rise in growth in enrolment of students in higher education from 4.9 million in 1990-91 to 28.5 million in 2011-12. Similarly gross enrolment ratio (GER) in Classes I-VIII has also risen from 81.0 in 1999-2000 to 103.9 in 2010-11. In the earlier period (2009-10 compared to 2004-05) unemployment in absolute terms came down by 6.3 million as expansion in labour force was only 11.7 million vis a vis about 18 million increase in work opportunities under the current daily status (CDS) between 2004-5 and 2009-10, as per NSSO quinquennial survey. (The Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) had aimed at generation of 58 million work opportunities). Compared to 2004-05, even in 2011-12 unemployment had declined. During 2011-12, as in 2009-10, urban unemployment was higher under both the UPSS and CWS but rural unemployment was higher under the CDS approach. This possibly indicates higher intermittent or seasonal unemployment in rural than urban areas, something that employment generation schemes like the MGNREGA need to pay attention to. 32.4 As per NSS results, unemployment rate as per weekly status (CWS) is uniformly higher than that as per Usual Status (adj). This occurs because some persons usually employed might not have worked throughout the year due to seasonality of work or otherwise. This is termed as visible underemployment. The NSS measures the visible underemployment by cross classifying persons by different statuses. For eg. Underemployment rate among the usually employed may be defined as the proportion of usually employed who were