Bhubaneswar: In a written statement, the state government Sunday accepted that 8.9 lakh educated youths registered with the state employment exchange are still without jobs.
State Skill Development Minister Premananda Nayak tabled the date on the floor of the Odisha Assembly. The minister claimed that as on September 30 this year, 1,82,536 Under-Graduates, 11,358 Post-graduates and 1,97,504 youths with professional education such as ITI, BeD, MeD and others were registered with the state employment exchange.
The registered unemployed include trained teachers, diploma holders and others. In another reply to the Assembly, the minister admitted that most of the ITI students in the state did not get placement even after completing their studies.
Giving details, the minister said that in the KBK region, Gajapati and Kandhamal districts a total of 2,329 ITI students did not get job even after getting their diplomas. The highest number of unemployed youths was reported from Raygada, where 1,005 aspirants are still without jobs. As of date, 4,169 ITI students are registered with the state employment exchange.
The minister, however, said that the government has been focusing on skill development and other aspects to ensure youths got jobs and also enhanced their skill. “To boost the employment rate in the state, the government launched the State Employment Mission in 2005-06. In 2016-17, the government launched the State Skill Development Mission and the earlier mission was merged with it,” the minister said.
Under the State Employment Mission, several unemployed youths were recruited and self-employed by various employment and self-employment programmes. To make the skills development programme more effective, the state government set up the Odisha Skills Development Authority in 2016-17,” the minister said.
He added that the Chief Minister’s Employment General programme was launched in 2014-15, providing training to 13,66,116 youths in the last six years. He said that 27 special Defence recruitment rallies resulted in providing jobs to 5,027 youths between 2014-15 and 2019-20.
Nayak also said that a total of 246 district level job fairs also helped in the recruitment of 1,31,647 youths from the state.