Print Email to Friend| Posted on 08 May 2012

CURRENT AFFAIRS   UTTAR PRADESH

In Uttar Pradesh, the jobless get money. Not jobs

UP CM Akhilesh Yadav’s unemployment dole will put a huge burden on the exchequer, rather than tackling the issue, says Virendra Nath Bhatt

The CM’s gift An employment exchange in Lucknow Photo: Pramod Adhikari

UTTAR PRADESH’S unemployed youth are running all the way to the employment exchange following the regime change. After assuming office, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav wasted no time in convening a Cabinet meeting on 15 March to obtain its approval for giving an allowance of Rs 1,000 per month to every jobless youth in the state.

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In what is being seen as pursuing a populist agenda, this move by the Samajwadi Party government will add an additional recurring burden of Rs 2,000 crore on the state, even as Uttar Pradesh reels under an accumulated debt burden of close to Rs 2 lakh crore as on 31 March.

The young chief minister defended the move saying if thousands of crores could be spent on myriad parks and memorials by the previous BSP regime, then his government could definitely spend over a thousand crores on giving some relief to the unemployed youth of the state. Moreover, this was one of the promises made by the Samajwadi Party during its campaign for the Assembly polls.

Employment exchanges across the state have seen a massive rush as jobless youth queued up to qualify for the allowances, which the Samajwadi Party and the bjP had promised in their manifestos. The bjP had pledged Rs 2,000 a month for each unemployed youth in the state.

However, the issue is not as simple as the chief minister is making it seem. Instead of adding to a burden of over Rs 16,000 crore in annual debt servicing obligations, the government could have done well to fill over 5 lakh sanctioned government posts lying vacant in various departments. This includes 2.18 lakh posts of police personnel, 2.78 lakh teachers’ posts in government- run primary, upper primary and secondary schools, besides 6,000 sanctioned posts of doctors and over 1,000 para-medical staff, including nurses.

“Recruitment against vacant posts will not be an unforeseen burden as the appointed persons will draw salary and allowances from the treasury,” says a senior official of the finance department on condition of anonymity.

“The unemployment allowance will certainly be an additional burden on the state exchequer but it’s a political decision and it’s our duty to implement the orders of the political executive,” he adds.

A “political decision” is perhaps the only way to explain the government’s largesse. how else would one justify the paucity of staff in a department as important as the police?

Against the sanctioned strength of 191 police personnel per lakh people, as many as 116 posts are lying vacant. of the total 58,794 sanctioned posts of head constables, 44,177 are vacant. of 2.5 lakh posts for constables, as many as 1.62 lakh remain unfilled. Important wings like the Special Task Force and anti-terrorist squad are also crippled by a paucity of staff.

Against the sanctioned strength of 191 police personnel per lakh people, as many as 116 posts are lying vacant. of the total 58,794 sanctioned posts of head constables, 44,177 are vacant. of 2.5 lakh posts for constables, as many as 1.62 lakh remain unfilled. Important wings like the Special Task Force and anti-terrorist squad are also crippled by a paucity of staff.

The health department too fares no better. Against the total sanctioned 14,103 posts for doctors, as many as 5,621 are vacant. Close to 7,000 posts for medical staff such as pharmacists, lab technicians, x-ray technicians, auxiliary nurse midwives and basic health workers are also waiting to be filled.

officials of the home and police departments admit that there is a dire need of recruiting and improving the training infrastructure in the state for new recruits.

“Recruitment, retirement and litigation over service matters are run simultaneously and this is a continuous process,” says RM Srivastava, principal secretary of the home department. “We are in the process of expediting the process of recruitment. Training infrastructure is another challenge for us as the annual intake capacity of the five training centres of the state police is only 8,000 personnel a year.”

one can infer the need for more recruitments to fill the vacant posts as well as the need for more training centres.

The Cabinet has approved the dole-forthe- unemployed scheme in principle. The only things that need to be ironed out are the finer details like the maximum and minimum age and the expected number of beneficiaries.

“The tentative cap on age is 35 years but it could also be higher and the age limit will ultimately decide the number of beneficiaries, which is expected to be around 10 lakh,” says Shailesh Krishna, principal secretary of the labour department.

Uttar Pradesh’s employment exchanges, which come under the labour department, register every person above age 14 in a job queue, who become eligible only at 18. The list includes the illiterate as well as those with degrees in technical education.

A PART FROM the age limit and a cap fixed by family income or living standards, the government is mulling voluntary work for beneficiaries. “The idea is to give the youth some work exposure as well as help the government. The work given to the beneficiaries will be of a non-permanent nature and as per the ability of the person,” says another officer of the home department. According to him, this could include tasks such as data collection or data entry.

Though the proposal has been approved by the Cabinet on 15 March, the actual disbursement of the allowance is slated to begin by the end of August or early September. The financial provision for the allowance could be made in the next fiscal, when the budget is likely to be presented in the Assembly in May.

Meanwhile, the announcement of the unemployment allowance has drawn sharp criticism from all quarters. The opposition claims that the chief minister is more interested in pursuing a populist political agenda with an eye on the 2014 Lok Sabha polls rather than catching the unemployment bull by its horns.

however, the Samajwadi Party and its young chief minister are determined to implement the promise made in the election manifesto. “our vision is clear,” says Yadav. “We are not pursuing any populism by helping the unemployed youth. The problem of unemployment is much more acute than what we had anticipated.”

Maintaining that the unemployment allowance does not mean the government has forgotten the vacant government posts, he says, “The process is already on for appointing teachers, doctors and police personnel in the state.”

Virendra Nath Bhatt is a Special Correspondent with Tehelka.
virendranathbhatt@gmail.com