Expressing grave concern over the fast-growing rate of unemployment in Jammu & Kashmir, Prof Hari Om, Political Advisor to State BJP President Jugal Kishore Sharma, on Tuesday charged the Congress-NC coalition Government with playing with the educated and skilled and unskilled youth and demanded a comprehensive white paper on the issue.“The revelations made by the Economic Survey Report of 2013-2014 of Jammu & Kashmir, which was tabled by the government in the Assembly last week, are alarming and constitute a poor reflection on the working of the coalition government. The coalition partners, instead of addressing the issue of unemployment and focusing on governance, wasted its time and energy on emotive and pisive issues and failed to make any optimum use of the enormous funds it received from New Delhi during the past more than five years,” he said, and added that the acute unemployment problem in the state has the potential of causing unrest in the state on an unprecedented scale.
He said that the irresponsible and callous state government did nothing whatever during the past five years to evolve a suitable employment policy, induce the leading and credible corporate houses to invest in the state, make optimum use of natural resources and promote traditional skills to generate more employment opportunities.Prof Hari Om made these observations while reacting to the startling and dumb-founding revelation that the state witnessed 190 per cent increase in the number of job seekers, who registered themselves with the various employment exchanges in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh over the last five years. He said the Report revealed that at the State level the number of registered job seekers increased from 106130 in 2008 to 307827 in 2013, thus registering a whopping increase of 190 per cent.
These are alarming and disturbing figures,” he said, and added that the Report also revealed that in last nine months, 25,280 under-Matric youth got themselves registered with the various employment exchanges in the state and that during the same period, 62,901 Matric pass, 41,460 Graduates, 11,074 Post-Graduates, 4558 Engineering Degree holders, 8507 Engineering Diploma holders, 5505 professional ITI trained and 2,015 other skilled professional also got themselves registered with the various employment exchanges seeking jobs.“The state government must issue a comprehensive white paper on the whole issue indicating the rate of unemployment in Kashmir Valley, Jammu province and Ladakh region so that the people of these three regions know what is their position in their respective regions. A white paper on the issue is a must considering the fact that as per the one official estimate the rate of unemployment in Kashmir is less than 30 per cent, as against over 69 per cent in Jammu province,” Prof Hari Om also said. He urged the state government to do the needful at the earliest failing which the people of the state in general and Jammu province in particular would have no other option but to conclude that the Congress-NC coalition is not transparent.