Congress today slammed Punjab's SAD-BJP government over the employment generation in the state and described its promises made in this regard as a white lie.
"The tall claims of Parkash Singh Badal for providing jobs to lakhs of unemployed youths is not only a white lie but great mischief with youths including those belonging to the reserved categories, the SCs and BCs," he said.
In a statement here, Bajwa said that it had became a fashion among members of the Badal family, mainly Chief Minister and his son Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to issue false statements and then push in a advertising campaign to make people believe their falsehood.
"The data collected by Congress party worker Jasdeepak Singh, a Chandigarh-based RTI activist, has unmasked the Badals on job generation front," he said.
He said that a separate department of job generation and training was set up by the SAD-BJP government to mislead people while the truth is that the department is defunct and has not generated even single job in the last seven years.
"The information sought by the Chandigarh doctor under the RTI has vindicated Congress' stand," he said.
The official data on employment generation, in hand with the Congress party has revealed that the employment rate in Punjab was just at an average of 5 to 6 per cent since the time SAD-BJP government took over in 2007, he said.
He said that Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the main partner in the alliance government, had in its manifesto for 2007-12 had promised to fill 1.50 lakh vacancies and 10 lakh jobs were promised in 2012-17 election manifesto.
Bajwa alleged that more than 50-lakh youths were unemployed in the state and number is adding up every year.
He said that as per details provided under RTI, the SAD-BJP government has only provided jobs to only 35,034 unemployed people out of the 5,30,724 registered which is only 6.6 per cent.
