LAHORE -The Punjab government has tattered hopes of the jobless youth by banning recruitments to the public departments, it has been learnt
The government has taken this step to save money however, recruitments through Punjab Public Service Commission which fills grade-17 and above posts through test and interview are still intact. These jobs are executive jobs which are created in public departments following retirements etc of the civil servants and have to be filled in by the Commission as routine matter. Apart from that the Commission has to also recruited Civil Judges on demand of the Provincial Judiciary.
The jobless youth who looked forward at the new government for employment in education, health, agriculture, labour, finance, excise, taxation, jails, irrigation, fisheries adding other public departments in the low grade, security persons, technicians, skill hands, clerks, drivers, qasids, have been disheartened.
It is not certain when the ban will be lifted as the last PML-N government in Punjab had also maintained the same on fresh recruitments for most of the part of its five-year tenure. And this time too, the chances are bleak that the youth would get good news in near future. It may also be noted that the PML-N manifesto envisaged number of programmes to employ the talented youth. Self employment through soft loans and financial help to the talented boys and girls through Punjab Endowment Scheme are among them but they are totally insufficient to absorb the whole lot of the jobless persons, which is the highest in Punjab of all four provinces. According to official statistics, the number of jobless in Punjab stands at over 21 lakh and majority belongs to the urban areas.
If the ban would have been lifted, it would have provided comfort to a considerable number of jobless who neither qualify to get soft loans nor fall under the endowment fund scheme.
Usually the government in the budget announces the quantum of jobs it will create in the coming financial year. But this time no such announcement has been made rather Punjab budget made only 10 per cent increase in the salaries contrary to other provinces which raised it to 15 to 20 per cent.
The ban on jobs is undertaken mostly on the pleas of getting time to collect facts and figures about the vacancies as well as to identify the areas where political motivated appointments were made above the required number employees. This exercise purports transparent and merit-based recruitments after lifting the ban but mostly it has been observed that elected members using their influence and some time pressure, get their favourites quietly inducting into the departments and leaving no job opportunities for the deserving. So the government also does not opt for lifting ban since no vacancies are there.
Punjab government is giving special attention on producing educated class but it needs to create jobs for them proportionate to their raise in number. The Punjab government through involving private sector has made an attempt to provide jobs but more than this, it owes responsibility to cater to the job needs for which it is necessary that industrial and production side of economy is promoted both at the public and private level. Otherwise the jobless youth will become a burden on the economy and a factor to increase the crime rate, for the frustrated people can resort to any act to get sustenance.