Norms for unemployment allowance in Uttarakhand freed
State removes cap of one person per family, earlier, only eldest applicant in a family was entitled for such allowance
The Uttarakhand government today decided to liberalise norms for the unemployment allowance scheme in the face of stinging criticism from the opposition.
The scheme, which was launched with much fanfare on November 9 last year, had failed to find favour with the jobless mainly due to its stringent norms. The scheme had covered only 834 youths, or a tiny 0.11 per cent of the total population of the hill state, within the first one month of its launch. This, despite Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna's claim that the government received nearly 4,000 applications.
In order to accommodate more beneficiaries, a meeting of the state cabinet held at secretariat here decided to raise the limit of the family income from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh for getting the allowance, chief secretary Alok Kumar Jain said.
Jain said the cabinet also decided to remove the cap of one person per family under the new norms. Earlier, only the eldest applicant in a family was entitled for such allowance.
In another amendment, the cabinet also decided that all those people who are registered with the unemployment exchange for at least four years would be entitled for doles irrespective of their last qualification. There are three broad categories for unemployment allowance -- Rs 500 to intermediates, Rs 750 to graduates and Rs 1,000 to post-graduates.
The government was facing criticism from the opposition on unemployment allowance since last month. In the last Vidhan Sabha session, the main opposition BJP had raised the issue and described the scheme as farce. The leader of the opposition Ajay Bhatt had said that there were virtually no takers for the scheme in the state.
However, the Chief Minister said the scheme would cover a total of 60,000 youths.
Fulfilling a key assembly election promise, the government on November 9 launched the unemployment allowance scheme despite an acute financial crunch. On the first day itself, the Chief Minister gave unemployment doles to nearly 100 persons to kick-start the scheme. But thereafter, the scheme did not pick up momentum.
With the unemployment rising in the hill state, the government is finding an uphill task to cover all the educated unemployed youths who have been registered at the unemployment exchanges of the hill state. The government’s real worry is that out of the total 703,000 unemployed youths, who are registered at the unemployment exchange, more than 90 percent of them are educated ones.
There had been steep rise of nearly 140,000 unemployment youths compared to the last year’s figure of 565,000.
In order to restrict the number of beneficiaries, the government had determined the criteria for availing the unemployment allowance under which youths must be in the 25-35 years age group and should have completed four years of registration with the unemployment exchange with effect from November 9, 2012.