Bali set to embarrass govt again

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 16

Adamant on his demand that the Congress regime must honour its election commitment of granting unemployment allowance to the jobless youth, Transport Minister GS Bali once again seems to be in a belligerent mood as he plans to hold a state-level rally for unemployed youth and women from all over the state by this month-end.

Having raised the issue of rising unemployment in the state on several occasions in the past, the plans of Bali, who shares a blow hot- blow cold relationship with Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, could once again embarrass his own government.

While the state government has been maintaining that the number of actual jobless in the state is a mere 3.83 lakh as most other are either under-employed or have not got their names struck off the employment exchanges, Bali has been putting the figure well close to nine lakh. Sources close to the minister said he is scheduled to hold the first rally on the issue of unemployment and problems confronting the youth and women in his Assembly segment of Nagrota by this month end and later at Dharamshala in March. He is learnt to have already written letters to people in various parts of the state to be part of this exercise. When contacted, Bali confirmed that since unemployment was a big issue, he was planning to hold a rally. The rally by Bali, especially during the election year, could give ample ammunition to opposition BJP against the government. With both Virbhadra and Leader of Opposition PK Dhumal trading charges on the number of actual jobs given by the government in the last four years, Bali’s action could put the Congress regime on the back foot.

The Chief Minister has also very categorically said that considering the financial health of the state it was not possible to give unemployment allowance and the better and wiser option was to provide them with skilled training.

In fact, Bali had openly aired his opinion in favour of grant of unemployment allowance to the youth, when the Chief Minister had said that it was not possible to fulfill the promise. The Congress in its election manifesto during the 2012 Assembly elections had promised grant of monthly unemployment allowance to all youth who were plus two or graduates and from families having annual income of less than Rs 2 lakh.

While the figure of youth registered with various employment exchanges in the state stands at 8.92 lakh, the highest number is from Mandi (1.99 lakh) followed by Kangra 1.68 lakh, Hamirpur 81,319 and Shimla district 76,750. The number of post graduates in the state is 67,816, graduates – 1.17 lakh, matriculate and under graduate- 6.44 lakh and under matriculate - 61,820.