Unemployment In J&K: Youth Ready To Join Entrepreneurial Bandwagon: Govt Survey

Mir Zubair Nabi, 24, who completed his Master's degree in political science from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, over a year ago, has been unable to find a government job in Kashmir. Mir remains dejected as employment in the private sector remains limited here, and finding a decent government job is difficult.

Not many jobs are advertised here by the authorities, and Mir believes that there are only a few government employment avenues in which one becomes eligible, but the recruitment process often stretches for years, due to which most aspirants become ineligible on account of the upper age limit. The maximum age limit for most of the posts in Jammu and Kashmir remains 40.

“One, the jobs are not being advertised regularly, and then we have a difficulty that the recruitment process takes a long time. It takes at least two years for the vacancies to be filled from the time jobs are advertised,” said Zubair, a resident of South Kashmir’s Shopian, who is looking to sit for an exam in the administrative service or teaching in the higher education department.

The unemployment issue has again come under the spotlight in the Union Territory after the findings of the Mission YUVA (Yuva Udyami Vikas Abhiyan) survey that showed that nearly 4.7 lakh youth were ready to become entrepreneurs.

“I promise the youth of Jammu and Kashmir, that I will try my best to take you to that height, where you will not only write a better destiny for yourself, but for Jammu and Kashmir,” said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah at a function last month while talking about the job scenario in Kashmir and the role the entrepreneurship through Mission Yuva can play to generate employment.

For the Mission Yuva, which tested the appetite of the youth towards employment, the government surveyed more than one crore people, said a senior official of the Department of Employment, adding that " we engaged over 17000 investigators and collected data on the app."

However, the opposition was not convinced that Jammu and Kashmir could overcome unemployment through the existing policies of the Omar Abdullah government on entrepreneurship, which require youth to prove their financial capability through mortgaging their household property to get loans.

People’s Democratic Party (PDP) spokesperson, Mohit Bhan, said that the CM, Omar, has made fake promises to the people, promising that his government will create job opportunities, while on the contrary, despite being in the nine months in office he has failed to deliver. “ In terms of entrepreneurship opportunities for the youth, promises and claims by the government are all a hoax. There are so many bottlenecks that the youth face, who are being asked to give a mortgage for the loans. From where will an unemployed youth arrange the mortgage to get the loans?”

In Jammu and Kashmir, the level of unemployment was much higher than what has remained at the national level. As per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation of the year 2023-24, Jammu and Kashmir has an unemployment rate of 6.1 per cent which is double the all-India rate of 3.2 per cent.

The Jammu and Kashmir government earlier said in its latest Economic Survey that the unemployment rate has recorded a dip of 0.6 percentage points and has reached 6.1 per cent in 2023-24 from 6.7 per cent in 2019-20.

Congress chief spokesperson Ravinder Sharma, however, said that the unemployment scenario in Jammu and Kashmir was grim. “ There are thousands of posts which have been abolished, and the level of unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir is very high,” he said.

Sharma also added that the promises made by the BJP government that the abrogation of Article 370 would create a lot of employment opportunities proved to be a hoax as  " joblessness continues to remain a major problem in Jammu and Kashmir."

“ I hope the government of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah fulfils its promise and creates employment avenues for people. We will support the initiatives of the  government, which will help to reduce the level of unemployment."

Convener of the Jammu and Kashmir Students Association, Nasir Khuehami, said that the youth of Jammu and Kashmir are complaining about the lack of job opportunities, and there is a general sense of frustration among the aspirants.

“There are thousands of posts which are vacant in the health and education sectors, and the government should have ensured that the filling up of these vacancies was fast-tracked. The unemployed youth are feeling frustrated as Kashmir lacks big industries in the private sector, and the government jobs are not commensurate with the demands.”