Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Bharatsinh Solanki announced on Tuesday that the Congress would give unemployment allowance to youngsters if the oldest political outfit would come into power post assembly elections.
Addressing a Press conference, Solanki claimed that even after 22 years of power, the BJP couldn’t offer adequate jobs to the youth. The BJP had promised 50 lakh jobs, but the fact is more than 30 lakh youngsters are unemployed, he added.
“The economy is in doldrums and business in dumps. The agriculture growth has slackened and the youth are in disgust. The agitations in the State are symbolic of this dissatisfaction,” said Solanki.
According to him, Gujarat witnessed imposition of section 144 for 200 days in a year. He stated this in response to the BJP president Amit Shah’s remark that under Congress rule Gujarat witnessed curfew for 200 days in a year before 1995.
The GPCC president said the Congress would provide jobs to every youngster in five years and as per party’s commitment, unemployed youngsters would get allowance till they get jobs. The Congress said that it will extend a monthly stipend of Rs 3,000 to each youngster who has completed 12th, Rs 3,500 for graduates and Rs 4,000 for post graduates. It also announced that soft loan will be extended to those seeking to go entrepreneurial way.
The move wouldn’t give much financial burden on the State as it would cost hardly Rs 8,000 crore per year, said Solanki, adding that the amount is much lesser than that of BJP-ruled Government’s expenses on fairs and festivals.
“We will strictly adhere to the policy of giving 80 per cent jobs to local people. Gujarat was a textiles hub, an oil engine hub, pharma hub, diamond hub, chemicals hub and ceramic hub before 1995 when BJP came to power. Since then they talked of making Gujarat an I-T hub, knowledge hub, auto hub but nothing. The State has not added even 1 MW of public sector power, nor has one university been opened by Government. All that capitalist BJP has done is open up the sectors for private sector,” said former Gujarat Congress president Siddhartha Patel in context to Amit Shah’s data on pre and post 1995 developments which Shah divulged during his interaction with youngsters on Sunday.