Nasir Azam
Srinagar, Sep 21: The unemployment is on a rise in Jammu & Kashmir as the number of jobless youth registered with the Labour & Employment department has swelled over 94000.
Official documents in possession of news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) lay bare that 94,221 unemployed youth have voluntarily registered themselves with the district employment and career counselling centers till March 2020 across J&K UT.
In January 2018, the number of educated unemployed youths registered with district employment and counselling centers was 87,650. According to the data revealed by then Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, 41,981 were registered with the centers in Kashmir division and 45,669 in Jammu division.
According to the latest documents, 25257 such youth are postgraduates and 15066 graduates.
The documents further lay bare 20257, 765, and 14403 have respectively passed 12th, 11th and 10th classes. Of them, 4407 are middle pass and 755 illiterates, it states. Of them, 4043 are diploma holders,5650 degree holders, 151 draftsmen, 1654 skilled other than ITI and 1803 ITI trained.
It is worthwhile to mention here that J&K’s former Governor Satya Pal Malik had announced in August last year that 50000 jobs would be filled in next months. But not a single post was advertised by J&K’s Service Selection Board and
Public Service Commission for 9-10 months due to change in J&K’s legal and constitutional position.
As per the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) reply to a parliamentary panel on February 18, there are over 84,000 vacancies in J&K. Of which 22,078 vacancies pertain to Class IV employees, 54,375 to non-gazettted and 7,552 vacancies at gazetted level—(KNO)