New Delhi: Looks like Rahul Gandhi has been caught lying again. Not too long ago, the Congress president had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of destroying 1 crore jobs in 2018 alone.

“In 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi destroyed 1 crore jobs in the country. This is the scale of his incompetence. It is absurd and ridiculous that the PM promises giving 2 crore jobs,” Rahul said at a rally in Imphal. Rahul’s statement came after Modi in February claimed that his government had created 1.2 crore jobs a year.

The opposition has been crying about what it calls 'vanishing jobs' under the Modi government, but the reality is completely different. 

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According to the latest Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) payroll data, net employment generation in the formal sector touched a 17-month high of 8.96 lakh in January 2019. The addition in January was 131% higher as compared with 3.87 lakh EPFO subscribers added in the year-ago month.

Around 76.48 lakh new subscribers were added to the EPFO's social security schemes from September 2017 to January 2019. This is the number of total jobs created in the formal sector in the specified period. 

In September 2017, a net of 2,75,609 jobs was created.

The EPFO payroll data, for the first time in several months, declared a growth in job creation since September 2017. Initially, it was revising the total job creation downwards to 72.32 lakh in December 2018 from 79.16 lakh in October 2018. 

The EPFO, which is considered to be the official benchmark for gauging job creation in the country, started giving out reports on employment numbers from the formal sector from September 2017. 

However, the statutory body revised its payroll data for December 2018 by 1.8% to 7.03 lakh. In November, the data estimate to be 7.16 lakh. The EPFO also revised the cumulative job addition data for the September 2017-December 2018 period downwards 6.6% to 67.52 lakh, from the earlier forecast of 72.32 lakh.

March 2018, recorded the sharpest revision. The report showed exit of 29,023 members from the EPFO subscriptions. 

The sharpest revision was for March 2018 in the latest report which showed contraction or exit of 29,023 members from the EPFO subscriptions whereas last month's estimated addition of 5,498 members.

The EPFO manages social security funds of workers in the organised/semi organised sector in India and has more than 6 crore active members (with at least one-month contribution during the year).

With inputs from PTI