Gujarat Congress today said that it would give unemployment allowance to the youths if the party was voted to power in the state in 2017.
Congress was going to launch a major drive for registration of unemployed youths in January, it added. Assembly elections are due in Gujarat in the latter half of 2017.
"We have decided to give unemployment allowance to youths if we come to power," state Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki said here. "We will give Rs 3,000 to those who have passed class 12th, Rs 3,500 to the graduates and Rs 4,000 to post-graduate youths (who are jobless)," he said.
"As per our estimation, there are 50 lakh unemployed youths in the state. This decision will not put much burden on the exchequer as the amount would be a very small compared to the enormous state budget," Solanki said.
Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Shankarsinh Vaghela said registration of unemployed youth (who would be eligible for allowance) will start from January 1 and close on January 15.
"The registration can be done online on Congress website or at various booths (to be) set up by the party all over the state," Vaghela said.
"This is our credible commitment and not a gimmick to garner votes," he said, adding that the promise would be fulfilled "in the next 100 days" after coming to power.
"It is also our commitment to give jobs to the unemployed youths. But till the time we can give jobs, we will give an allowance to them," he said.
Congress's national spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said as
per the government figures there were 18,625 unemployed engineers, 2.19 lakh unemployed graduates and 43,850 unemployed post-graduates in Gujarat.
"However, we all know that these figure are very low than the actual number which runs into lakhs," he said.
Congress leaders criticised the ruling BJP for "failing to provide jobs" to the youths.
"The government is busy organising extravagant functions like Vibrant Gujarat Summit and spending lots of money on it, but the end-result is nothing as no jobs are being created for youths," Solanki said.
"The jobless growth has resulted in Patel community's agitation for quota," he said.
Gohil said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised during the 2014 election campaign to create ten crore jobs in five years. "However in 2015... Only 1.35 lakh youths got new jobs," he said.
Vaghela said Congress will announce a series of steps for the youth in the run-up to the elections. "We had announced that we will stop fix-pay scheme adopted by this government and will give full pay to all those who have been employed under fix-pay scheme," he said.
