Even as Punjab Congress is gathering ammunition to attack ruling SAD-BJP combine on the issue of unemployment, the statistics revealed that the State’s unemployment rate stood at merely 1.8 per cent.
The figure is much lower than the national average of 3.8 per cent, stated the paper — Progressive Punjab: Opportunities Unlimited — prepared by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry released on Tuesday.
It stated that the number of job seekers, both educated and uneducated, on the live registers of Employment Exchanges across the State during 2010-11 was 3.62 lakh, out of which, 2.53 lakh were educated.
Out of the educated job seekers, 1.95 lakh that accounts for 77.23 per cent were non-technical, whereas 0.58 lakh, which is 22.77 per cent, had technical qualifications, it added.
The Paper maintained that the State “has made serious efforts to enhance employability of the youth by imparting job specific vocational skills”. It added that the State Government is also providing unemployment allowance “to educated unemployed persons who are not adjusted in any gainful employment”.
On the other hand, the main Opposition party Congress has all along been accusing the State Government for ignoring the State’s unemployed youth, and not fulfilling the promises made to them, including providing unemployment allowance.
The party, as of now, is in the process of gathering data of unemployed youth across the State, on the basis of which it is planning to drag in the Government in the corridors of justice.
Congress party chief Partap Singh Bajwa claimed, on the basis of information received under the Right to Information Act, that 5,30,724 persons have registered themselves in the employment exchanges during SAD-BJP regime beginning 2007 till August 2013, and “jobs to only 35034 unemployed persons — only six per cent of those registered — was provided in seven years of its regime”.
The Paper further patted the State Government’s back for running16 training centers under the programme on Centre for Training and Employment of Punjab Youth (C-PYTE) where unemployed youth are being provided training for recruitment in Armed Forces or Para Military Forces and also employment or self-employment in Industry.
This is not all! The Paper also applauded the State Government in the field of industrialisation by increasing in investment in a year’s time, from the financial year 2011-12 to 2012-13, along with the employment level and turnover.
“In 2011-12, there were 1,70,000 small scale industrial units with an investment of `9,000 crore that generated employment for about 10 lakh people with a turnover of `60,000 crore….During 2012-13, it is estimated that this number increased to 1,72,000, with a fixed investment of `9,400 crore, and employment level touching at around 11 lakh persons with a production value of `64,000,” read the paper.
A senior Congress leader, requesting anonymity while talking with The Pioneer, questioned the accuracy of claims made in the paper.“I wonder from where they got all that information. The Government might have kept the PHD chamber in dark and gave all wrong information, as the information provided by the government under the RTI to the party’s RTI cell said something else,” the leader added.