Ahead of Assembly polls, Haryana government races to cut down on unemployment

The government has recently announced the recruitment of 6,000 constables in Haryana Police. Besides this, 15,755 posts in various departments have also been advertised. These include 5,208 posts of clerks, 1,100 jail warders, 3,107 Gram Sachivs, 433 cooperative sub-inspectors, 1,440 patwaris, 981 junior engineers, 1,236 revenue patwaris and 517 junior engineers (electrical), besides a few other posts. The government is aiming to complete the written examination and other formalities for these posts by July end.

Soon after the Lok Sabha results were announced on June 4 –the BJP and Congress won five seats each in Haryana — Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini announced that the government will fill up 50,000 posts by August end.

Saini’s statement came against the backdrop of unemployment being one of the biggest issues the Opposition flagged while attacking the BJP government during the Lok Sabha poll campaign. Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda had accused the BJP of not taking adequate steps to curtail unemployment, saying “this BJP government has made Haryana No. 1 in unemployment”.

“Today, the unemployment rate in Haryana is over 34 per cent. There are over 2 lakh posts lying vacant in government departments. But the government is not serious about filling these vacant posts and is rather misleading unemployed youth by exploiting them in the name of Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam. Those recruited through HKRNL are only given contractual jobs and do not even get basic salaries,” Hooda had alleged.

Former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, however, had vehemently refuted the Opposition’s claims. In February’s Vidhan Sabha session, Khattar had said the unemployment rate in Haryana was only between 7.5-8 per cent.

There are over 4.5 lakh unemployed youth seeking jobs on the Haryana government’s employment portal and 9,427 registered employers. The Haryana Public Service Commission has also announced recruitment for 805 posts of Ayurvedic medical officers. Besides that, the government has announced recruitment for para-teaching associates against posts of TGT/PGT for Social Studies, Hindi, Science, Sanskrit, English, Mathematics, History, Political Science, Commerce, Economics, Biology etc.

The government is also likely to fill around 2,800 posts of Junior Basic Teachers (JBTs).

“The government had made over 1.32 lakh recruitments during its tenure with utter transparency and on merit. Over 50,000 job opportunities shall also be unveiled in the coming days. Reservation for Backward Classes in Group-A and Group-B posts, currently at 15 per cent, shall be increased to 27 per cent in line with the central government’s policy. Besides this, a backlog of vacancies for Backward Class in Group A and Group B shall also be filled on a priority basis. Special recruitment drives shall be held soon. To ensure OBC youth receive employment opportunities, 27 per cent reservation shall also be implemented in recruitment through HKRNL,” Saini had said while announcing the government’s plans to curtail unemployment in the state.

Haryana’s Civil Aviation Minister Dr Kamal Gupta announced on Tuesday that the government was working on preparing a detailed work plan for the development of an integrated manufacturing cluster (IMC) in Hisar that is expected to generate over 1.25 lakh jobs.

“A total of 2,988 acres of land has been identified for this project, with an estimated cost of Rs 4694.46 crore. Existing industries near the IMC include the metal industry, engineering and fabrication, logistics, cotton and textiles, and food processing related to agriculture. This is a positive aspect for the IMC,” Gupta said, adding that the proposed IMC would include land allocation for aerospace and defence, food processing, engineering and fabrication, readymade garments, common ready sheds, and a logistics park.

Opposition unimpressed

The Opposition, however, is not impressed with the Haryana government’s announcements.

“It was in 2012 when the then Congress government in Haryana recruited 12,731 JBT teachers. For the last 12 years, why didn’t the government recruit even a single JBT teacher? The BJP government conducted an HTET [Haryana Teacher Eligibility Test] examination in which 7.5 lakh youngsters appeared by paying an examination fee of Rs 1,000 each. The government earned Rs 75 crore from that, but yet not a single appointment was made,” Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Singh Surjewala said.

“In September 2019, the Punjab and Haryana High Court imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on the Haryana government for not recruiting JBT teachers. Yet the government is barely recruiting around 2,000 JBT teachers and that too through HKRNL. A similar thing was done in 2015 when the BJP appointed JBT teachers on a contractual basis but they were also thrown out of jobs within three to eight months. This time again, the government is making such announcements that are nothing but a political gimmick,” Surjewala added.

Employment exchanges in Haryana

Currently, 65 employment exchanges are functional in Haryana. These include one state employment exchange at Panchkula, six divisional employment exchanges, 16 district employment exchanges, 39 sub-divisional employment exchanges and three University Employment Information and Guidance Bureaus. The employment exchanges register applicants and placements, provide vocational guidance to job seekers, collect employment market information data from establishments in the organised sector, and render free service to employers and job seekers.