Even as the UPA government is slow in implementing the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has announced his determination to beat the Congress at its own game. He intends to use youth power as a catalytic agent to return the Samajwadi Party to power in the state. While SP insiders maintained that youth would form the focus of Mulayam’s poll agenda, officials in the labour and employment department were of the view that the populist measure of an unemployment allowance of Rs 500 to the educated unemployed, announced by Mulayam in his budget speech yesterday, was fraught with many improbabilities. Though unemployment allowance for the jobless belonging to the undergraduate and post-graduate levels registered in the live registers till December 31 which would be applicable from April 1, figured in Mulayam’s speech, no budgetary provision has been made. Mulayam during his press conference had announced that it would entail an expenditure of Rs 240 crore. When contacted, the Principal Secretary (Finance) Shekhar Agarwal told The Indian Express, ‘‘ Now that the scheme figured in the budget announcements, budgetary provision can be made at a later date’’. However, sources said that Mulayam wanted central funding for the project, and if the centre’s reply is in the affirmative then the provision would be included in the supplementary grants. In UP, the number of jobless youths registered in 93 employment exchanges till December 31 was over 4 lakh. The total number of jobless youths from below the level of high school to the post-graduate level, as on December 31 was 18.62 lakh. But the figure of graduate and post-graduate jobless could be more. As Dilip Kumar, Additional Director in Directorate of Training and Employment, UP, said, ‘‘There is no record to show how many passouts from the universities and degree colleges were actually without jobs as the number of registration at the employment exchanges has been declining’’. More importantly, the parameters for giving allowance have not been specified. These included conditions for verifying the beneficiaries as thousands of registrations in employment exchanges, according to labour officials, were 20 to 30 years old. ‘‘This is another grey area as there is no record to suggest whether or not the registered unemployed were able to get employment in the intervening period,’’ he added. The income limit of the beneficiaries and multiple registration of the jobless were another contentious issues. Officials said that it has been noticed that the jobless registered themselves in more than one employment exchange. In fact, the number of graduate and post-graduate jobless registered in the Lucknow employment exchange till December 31 exceeded those in other towns and cities. Obviously the government cannot pay the unemployment dole to the same beneficiary at two places.
