It’s official, no unemployment dole as promised by Cong

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 7

Nearly 25 lakh youth signed up ahead of the Assembly elections to receive deep-red “unemployment allowance cards” from the Congress, which held out the promise of Rs 2,500 per month to the jobless if the party came to power. It did come to power, only now it has been decided there will be no such allowance.

Given the state of finances where employees will be paid halfway through this month, the Punjab Government now plans to arrange free training in “soft skills” for the unemployed youth to enable them to secure jobs. This will be carried out under the Punjab Skill Development Mission, paid for by the Union Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

Hopeful young men in the age group of 18 to 35 had registered under the “Har Ghar Ton Ikk Captain” scheme of the Congress, and received “Berozgari Bhatta Cards”. The promise was one job per household; and till such employment was arranged, an allowance of Rs 2,500 per month was to be paid for a maximum of three years.

The alternative plan now is to equip the youth with job-oriented short-duration soft-skills courses.

Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi says the government will invest over Rs 5,000 per person to impart the skills, and then hold ‘job melas’ to secure employment for them. “We will fulfil the promise of at least one job in every household. New soft-skill centres to provide training in 17 different vocations to 1 lakh youth in the first phase are being opened in urban as well as rural areas,” he says.

But the experience of the state thus far with skill centres has been more sour than sweet. At present, more than Rs 10 crore worth of payments to training centres are pending since the previous SAD-BJP government. Sources say funds received for nearly 100 such centres were diverted to other use. Now new centres are being opened under changed norms of the Ministry of Skill Development.

Regarding the change of offer from unemployment allowance to training, a senior official claims that employment generation was the goal, and the government has already promised to arrange nearly 4 lakh jobs, including 50,000 in government departments.

The government recently organised a “Ghar Ghar Rozgar” jamboree at Mohali, where it claimed to have handed out 27,000 appointment letters to youth who had been selected at “job melas” across the state over two weeks.