VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has directed officials to collect data of all the unemployed youth in the State so as to implement unemployment allowance scheme, one of the key poll promises made by him during 2014 elections.
During a meeting with the Group of Ministers (GoM) and officials at the Interim Government Complex in Velagapudi on Thursday, the Chief Minister discussed the AP State Youth Policy and the Unemployment Allowance Scheme.
The identified age group for the allowance was between 15 and 35 because only persons below 35 years of age eligibile for government jobs. After speculation, the Chief Minister changed this to 18-35, clarifying that the allowance must not discourage the youth from studying. “I want to improve employment opportunities for graduates and post graduates after ensuring adequate training and skill development,” Naidu said.
The officials reported that in India, 10 States and four Union Territories have implemented the Youth Policy and submitted the case study of eight states. The GoM expressed interest in visiting some of the States to understand the implementation methods.
Updating of data
The Planning and IT departments are going to form a committee to purify the data and eliminate inconsistencies. For example, the population of unemployed youth in AP was 9.5 lakh on the live register of Employment Exchanges, but Smart Pulse Survey puts the figure at 34 lakh. The Chief Minister said that it should be announced that in an allotted period of 15 to 20 days, all unemployed youth can register online so that they can avail the benefits of the Youth Policy and the numbers are updated.
“The details of this scheme need to be further furnished and the data needs to be purified and integrated with that of the Labour Department, Planning Department, Employment Exchanges and others. The qualifying age group and educational background will be finalised once we can analyse the correct data in the next meeting”, he said.
The GoM was asked to be prepared in 15 days when the next review meeting will be held.
