Hyderabad: Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao is all set to announce implementation of an unemployment allowance scheme to provide Rs 3,016 per month to the unemployed youths across the state.
Official sources said the scheme is likely to come into force from the financial year 2022-23 starting in April.
A promise had been made by the CM for such an allowance during the 2018 assembly polls when he sought a second term for the TRS. It was also incorporated in the TRS manifesto for the assembly polls. Although the TRS retained power for the second term with a huge majority, the promised unemployment scheme could not be implemented in the last three years.
With the allocation of existing government employees to new local cadres and new districts based on the new zonal system nearing completion, a clarity on the exact number of vacancies in various departments will emerge. The government wants to issue job notifications for existing vacancies soon and also extend unemployment allowance to unemployed youths until they secure jobs.
There is simmering anger among students and the unemployed with no job notifications being issued by the TRS government for the past five years. Also, there was no unemployment as was promised three years ago.
The implementation of the unemployment allowance scheme was planned in 2019 but was delayed due to lack of guidelines to define who should be treated as 'unemployed'. The government delayed the scheme in 2020 and 2021, citing the Covid-induced financial crisis.
Chief minister Rao, while presenting the vote-on-account budget in assembly for 2019-20, had allocated a token amount of Rs 1,810 crore for this scheme. He said that a committee of IAS officers will formulate the scheme and the guidelines as to who should be treated as 'unemployed."
Nearly 10 lakh candidates have been registered with the employment exchanges in the state. Over 29 lakh candidates have registered their names with the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) for government jobs. It is believed that many of the candidates registered with TSPSC were already doing private jobs or those doing government jobs are aiming for higher-rank jobs than what they are doing at present.
Even if the unemployed youth number 10 lakh, the government will have to earmark Rs 3,600 crore per year to cover all of them. The unemployed are already demanding that the scheme be implemented with retrospective effect from December 2018.
