Haryana’s unemployment rate is 9.3%: CM Khattar
Haryana CM Khattar said the unemployment rate in the state has decreased in comparison to what it was when Congress was in power. The number of applicants registered at present, he said, with various employment exchanges till February 2023 was 6.46 lakh.
Claiming that unemployment in Haryana has decreased and that over one lakh youth were given government jobs in past eight years, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday said as per the verified data, the number of unemployed in the state is 10.46 lakh.
“The data of every person is linked with the Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) and as per the self-declaration (self-verified data), the number of unemployed in the state is 10.46 lakh. However, there is a section of society which is not unemployed but actually underemployed,” Khattar said in the state assembly, responding to a question of Congress MLA Rao Chiranjeev, who wanted to know if unemployment has increased in the last eight years in the state and the steps taken by the government to increase the employment.
The chief minister said the unemployment rate in the state has decreased in comparison to what it was when Congress was in power. The number of applicants registered at present, he said, with various employment exchanges till February 2023 was 6.46 lakh. In December 2014, there were 7.86 lakh people registered with employment exchanges.
Khattar said the authentic data source on employment in all states/UTs is the periodic labour force survey (PLFS) which is conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) under the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MOSPI).
According to the 2021-22 annual PLFS report, the latest year for which the report is available, the unemployment rate in Haryana is 9.3%. The unemployment rate in Haryana was 8.6% in 2017-18, 9.2% in 2018-19, 6.5% in 2019-20, and 6.3% in 2020-21.
The chief minister said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also releases such data every year and that as per RBI the unemployment rate is 8.1%. Khattar said there is no fixed formula for ascertaining these figures and the figures of different agencies also differ.
Khattar said apart from over 1 lakh government jobs given in past eight years, under the Saksham Yuva Yojana postgraduate, graduate and Class 12 pass students are given ₹3,000, ₹1,500 and ₹900 per month,, respectively for 100 hours of work. So far 1.75 lakh youth have taken advantage of this scheme, he said.
Not only this, under the Haryana Skill Development Mission, employment opportunities have also been made available to more than 1 lakh youth by skill development. After 2015, employment has been provided to 12.64 lakh youth in the private sector as well, Khattar said, adding the unemployment figures of the CMIE are incorrect as they are based on small sample size.
Responding to the Congress’ accusations that employment is on the rise as per the unemployment figures released by CMIE agency from time to time, the chief minister informed the House that CMIE issues unemployment rate after conducting the sample survey of only 5,000 population out of the total of 1.80 crore population.
“The CMIE is a private organisation and there is no reliability and credibility for such data released by any private organisation. The CEO of the CMIE is also a member of the election manifesto of the Congress party. In 2017, this agency had shown the unemployment rate of Haryana at 2%. Sometimes it claims it to be 34% and sometimes 26%, which has no credibility,” said Khattar.