Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh took the government’s flagship `Ghar Ghar Rozgar te Karobar’ scheme to the next level with the distribution of 9592 appointment letters, taking the total number of jobs generated during the year to 161522.The event, to mark the distribution of the appointment letters at the culmination of the 2nd Mega Job Fair, coincided with the first anniversary of the Congress victory in the last assembly polls, which paved the way for the installation of the Captain Amarinder government and restoration of peace and stability in the state.The 2nd Mega Job Fair was organized by the government at 150 venues from February 20 to March 8. Several major corporates, including Maruti Suzuki, Microsoft, ICICI Bank, Amazon, etc, used the platform to hire talent.Addressing the state-level function, the Chief Minister congratulated the youngsters who had got their appointment letters, while thanking the large number of corporates which hired the youth as part of the job fairs.Pointing out that more than 1.61 lakh youth had got jobs in the first year of his government, which was no mean achievement, the Chief Minister said that with his government now fully settled in, the process of giving employment to all the unemployed youngsters would pick up speed. He expressed happiness that in addition to other sources of employment, including university placements, another 90000 jobs were being generated by the 15000 MSMEs that had registered themselves with the Industries Department during 2017-18.
The Chief Minister strongly rejected the propaganda that the job fairs were facilitating only low-paying jobs, saying that the packages offered in the 2nd fair ranged between Rs 3 lakh to a high of Rs 31 lakh per annum. There were as many as eight companies that had given out over Rs 12 lakh per annum packages, 12 companies with packages over Rs 10 lakh a year, 24 with Rs 7 lakh per annum packages and 66 that provided salary packages of Rs 5 lakh a year, he disclosed.Captain Amarinder urged the youngsters not to pursue only government jobs under the misconception that they were better paying, as private companies were clearly offering lucrative packages.Reiterating his government’s commitment to fulfilling the pre-election promise of `Ghar Ghar Rozgar’, the Chief Minister said the government was on the right track, with plans to set up various universities, including Skill Development, Sports and Horticulture, which would further pave the way to boost youth employability.
His government, said Captain Amarinder, had created an environment of peace in the state to facilitate progress. Peace is of critical importance for the state and he would not allow anyone to disturb it, vowed the Chief Minister, addressing the new police recruits.Speaking on the occasion, Technical Education Minister Charanjit Channi reiterated the government’s commitment to fulfilling its promise of `one job per household’. The department was planning to organize even international fairs to attract prospective employers from outside the country and provide the youngsters with a bigger platform for getting jobs, he added.
Finance and Employment Generation Minister Manpreet Badal also underlined the government’s commitment to the relentless pursuit of its `Ghar Ghar Rozgar’ mission and said what had been achieved so far was just the beginning. He exhorted the people of Punjab to work with the government to ensure the state’s progress and to make it corruption-free. Badal also lauded the contribution of the Congress party to the development of Punjab, as well as the nation, as unparalleled.Badal said 13.24 Lakh applicants under ‘Ghar Ghar Kaptan’ had been contacted through SMS and had been asked to register on the portal of `Ghar Ghar Rozgar.’ The recently launched portal already has 90413 jobseekers and 2090 employers with 58853 job posts on it.In his brief remarks, Jakhar hailed the Captain Amarinder government’s efforts towards mitigating the problems of the people, who had been deprived of opportunities for growth for a decade. The government, he said, had restored law and order in the state, with the elimination of gangsters a major achievement. It had also restored the trust of industrialists, said Jakhar, congratulating the Chief Minister for providing industry with a single-window for clearances to facilitate ease of business. Under the previous regime, the only window that opened was into the Badals’ house, he quipped.Jakhar lamented the lack of employability in the existing education system, which was completely degree-oriented. He stressed the need for revamp of the system to make education skill-based and to enable the youth to become technically educated.
An official spokesperson later said that besides the 16130 recruitments done by the government through advertisements against vacancies, a total of 83385 job placements had been done by the Employment Generation Department, the Technical Education Department and the Punjab Skill Development Mission from April 1, 2017, till date. Among the other jobs generated, 25718 were attributable to regular recruitments by various department and 36022 had been created under the self-employment schemes.The MGNREGA scheme also witnessed a major spike during the year, with wage employment of 1.96 crore man-days has been created up to February 15, 2018. This is 31% more than the number of man days generated during the corresponding period of last year. Under MGNREGA 143861 of job cards were newly made during 2017-18 – an increase of 41% over the corresponding period of the previous year.Prominent amongst those present on the occasion included Deputy Speaker Punjab Vidhan Sabha Ajaib Singh Bhatti, Health Minister Brahm Mohindra, Welfare Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Rural Development Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Education Minister Aruna Chaudhary, Media Advisor to Chief Minister Raveen Thukral, Members of Parliament Ravneet Singh Bittu and Gurjit Singh Aujla, MLAs Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Surinder Dabar, Rakesh Pandey, Kuldip Singh Vaid, Gurkirat Singh Kotli, Lakhbir Singh Lakha, Amrik Singh Dhillon, Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi, Darshan Lal, Darshan Singh Brar, Harjot Kamal Singh and Dr. Raj Kumar, former ministers Tej Parkash Singh Kotli and Malkit Singh Dakha and ex-MP Amrik Singh Aaliwal.