With unemployment now a major election issue the Madhya Pradesh government plans to organise a Mahapanchayat in each of the 51 districts to provide jobs to at least one lakh youth in a day after it could create only 17,600 jobs annually on an average in the last 14 years.
The opposition Congress has described as a political stunt.
To achieve that ambitious target, the government’s Skill Development and Employment Generation Board signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Pune-based company earlier this month to revive employment exchanges recently through public-private partnership (PPP) on the back of which the Mahapanchayat will be organised, officials said.
The board has also invited more than 1000 private companies including MNCs to participate in the Mahapanchayat scheduled to be held in July. The date is yet to be decided.
The collectors of all the districts have also been asked to actively participate in it.
After they are provided with job letters, these youth will be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi through a video conference.
The exercise is seen as a last-ditch effort by the BJP-led state government as according to MP Economic Survey-2018, there were 11.24 lakhs registered educated unemployed people in MP by the end of 2016 while the government created only 17,600 jobs per year on an average in the past 14 years.
{{/usCountry}}The exercise is seen as a last-ditch effort by the BJP-led state government as according to MP Economic Survey-2018, there were 11.24 lakhs registered educated unemployed people in MP by the end of 2016 while the government created only 17,600 jobs per year on an average in the past 14 years.
{{/usCountry}}The Congress and other regional political parties are raising unemployment as a major election issue.
Criticising the move Berozgar Sena, a social organisation formed to raise the issue of unemployment and the Congress have termed the state government’s decision to hold the Mahapanchayat a political stunt and last minute preparations to woo young educated voters only. They are also questioning why the BJP government didn’t do anything on unemployment in the past 14.5 years of its rule.
Berozgar Sena member Akshay Hunka called announcement a ‘jumla’ of BJP government ahead of the assembly election later this year.
“In the past 10 years the number of suicide due to unemployment has increased by 2000%, according to NCRB. This one-day Mahapanchayat is nothing but a process of fooling the youth,” Hunka said.
MP Youth Congress president Kunal Chaudhary said, “The BJP-led state government didn’t show any concern about youngsters in the past 14 years but now all of a sudden, they became so active that they will provide jobs to 1 lakh youth in a day. This is a political stunt and another way to cheat youngsters.”
However, Madhya Pradesh State Skill Development and Employment Generation Board chairman Hemant Vijayrao Deshmukh insists it is not a publicity stunt.
“We put in a lot of efforts in generating employment in the past two years but we don’t believe in publicity,” he said.
“It is a genuine effort to help the unemployed youths. We are also trying to coordinate with all the engineering colleges for campus selection,” the Nagpu-based RSS leader Deshmukh said.
“During Mahapanchayat, the candidates will be given a letter of intent and if they show their interest, they would be provided offer letters. All the data will be uploaded on the website and our monitoring committee will keep an eye on the process,” he said.
Deshmukh also said other than this process of providing 1 lakh jobs in a day, one lakh more jobs will be provided to youth by the companies which recently signed a MoU with the government.
“The company will not only revive 15 employment exchange offices but also provide them job by enhancing their skills in the next one year,” he added.