Question : Vacant Posts in J&K

(a) whether the number of vacant government posts in Jammu & Kashmir(J&K) stood at more than 80,000;
(b) the steps taken by the Government to fill the vacant seats.
(c) whether around five lakh people have lost jobs in J&K since August 5, 2019;
(d) Whether according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), J&K had the highest monthly average unemployment rate of over 15 per cent between January, 2016 and July 2019, more than double the national monthly average unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent during the period; and
(e) if so, the steps taken by the Government in this regard?

MINISTER OF STATE FOR LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT
(SHRI RAMESWAR TELI)

(a)to(e) : As per information received from Government of Jammu & Kashmir through Ministry of Home Affairs, the Government of J&K has constituted an Accelerated Recruitments Committee (ARC) with the aim to identify vacancies for being filled up on immediate basis and finalizing the procedure to be followed at all levels.

The Committee in the Phase-I, identified ten thousand Class-IV vacancies across various departments out of which 8575 have already been put to advertisement by the Board under the provisions of Jammu and Kashmir Appointment to Class-IV (Special Recruitment) Rules, 2020. As part of Phase-II of Accelerated Recruitments Drive, the Committee has identified 12,379 Gazetted and Non-Gazetted vacancies. Apart from ARC, 3694 other Gazetted and Non-Gazetted vacancies have also been identified for recruitment.

In the Union Territory of J&K post August, 2019, rigorous efforts are being made to provide jobs to unemployed youth both in public and private sectors. The Government of J&K has taken following further steps to provide employment: -

i. Under Mission Youth, Rs 200 crore has been provisioned for 2021-22 to provide for holistic development of youth of J&K. Under this initiative, a program called “MUMKIN” has already been launched under which full financial assistance is being provided for setting up self employment ventures in Transport sector.
ii. Under Back to Village programme, over 17,000 unemployed youth have been provided financial assistance for self employment ventures through J&K Bank under priority sector lending.
iii. Under the “Himayaat” scheme 20,827 candidates have completed their training and 7076 candidates have been placed in job.
iv. Labour and Employment Department of J&K Government is implementing the following self employment schemes for employment generation for unemployed educated youth of UT:
a. Seed Capital Fund Scheme
b. Youth Startup Loan Scheme
c. Women Entrepreneurship Programme

v. Vocational Education is being emphasized with establishment of vocational labs in High and Higher Secondary schools for improving employability of students and also in becoming entrepreneurs.
vi. School Education Department of J&K Government has launched an Online Career Portal (in phase-I covering two districts Udhampur and Ganderbal) wherein more than 30,000 students have registered their interest in selecting their future goals after passing class 12th, besides, introducing new technical subjects in schools with modern requirement which shall enhance the employability among the educated youth.

As per results of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted during 2019-20 by National Statistical Office (NSO) under Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, the unemployment rate in J&K (for all the age groups for all persons) on usual status basis (ps+ss) was 6.7 per cent which is much lower than many other States.
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