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Unemployed want job assurances this election
With political parties out to woo every sector of society, unemployed youth in Orissa are hoping that they get their due attention in this election season when they - or rather their votes - matter.
With political parties out to woo every sector of society, unemployed youth in Orissa are hoping that they get their due attention in this election season when they - or rather their votes - matter.
For politicos of every party, this is a vital issue that needs to be addressed urgently. According to unofficial estimates, there are three million unemployed youth in the state, up from one million in 2000.
Official figures are also grim. Of the 150,000 that applied for government jobs in the last four years of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule, only 8,000 have got jobs.
In the same period, more than 600,000 people registered with the various employment exchanges in the state.
The bland numbers manifest themselves in large-scale migration from the state, depression, isolation and sometimes even suicide.
According to the Orissa Bekari Abhiyan (OBA), an umbrella organisation of the unemployed, at least 12 young men died last year after failing to get jobs.
"I have been trying to get a job for five years but am yet to get one," said Manoj Mohanty of Jharsuguda town in Sambalpur.
The science graduate said he wanted an assurance from political parties that his grievances would be addressed.
"I am not even eligible to apply for a government job because the age limit for that is 28 and I lost out because I did not find a job opening in the government in the last five years," he said.
Jharsuguda was once a prosperous area. It was known as an industrial centre with several small and medium industries, including the major Orient Paper Mill (OPM) and Bharat Textile Mills (BTM) at Brajrajnagar, 25 km from the district headquarters.
OTM and BTM closed down after incurring losses and all the workers lost their jobs.
There are many Manojs and many Jharsugudas in the state.
In the state capital Bhubaneswar, for instance, there were hundreds of small-scale industries in the industrial area of Mancheswar in the early 1980s that closed down, a state industry association official said.
"We have been asking leaders to give firm assurances that they will provide us with jobs if they are voted to power. Otherwise, we will not let them to come to power," said Subodh Mallik, an unemployed young man in western Orissa's Sundergarh town.
Wary of the threat, parties have been promising jobs in each election. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's BJD has promised to create job opportunities. And so has the main opposition Congress, which has promised to create one million jobs in its manifesto.
Orissa is going in for simultaneous elections to elect 21 members to the Lok Sabha, lower house of parliament, and 147 members to the legislative assembly on April 20 and 26.
