Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), appointment letters were handed over to 75,000 newly inducted appointees. Image Source: IANS
The mass recruitment drive or the Rojgar Mela has been arranged by the central government at a very crucial point of time as the elections in the states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are just more than a month away.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ‘Rojgar Mela’ a mass recruitment drive for 10 lakh personnel through video conferencing on 22nd October 2022. According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), appointment letters were handed over to 75,000 newly inducted appointees. During the programme, Modi also highlighted the importance of making nation self-reliant in all the sectors.
Narendra Modi during his electoral campaign in 2014 had promised of creating 2 crore jobs every year. Also, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her 2022 budget speech had announced that the government will be creating 60 lakh jobs. India Tracker takes a look at the number of jobs created by the government in last eight years.
According to the Prime Minister's instructions, all Ministries and Departments are operating in Mission Mode to fill open positions against authorised positions. The new recruits, selected from across the country, will join 38 Ministries/Departments of the central government. The new appointees will join the government at various levels- Group A, Group B (Gazetted), Group B (Non-Gazetted) and Group C. Nearly 20,000 people will receive appointment letters from 50 Union ministries as part of the recruiting campaign at various venues across the nation. The prime minister had earlier in June urged that 10 lakh individuals be hired on a "mission mode" by various government agencies over the next year and a half.
The mass recruitment drive or the Rojgar Mela has been arranged by the central government at a very crucial point of time as the elections in the states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are just more than a month away. This drive tends to help BJP in countering criticism over unemployment in these states.
The chart below shows the number of jobs created by the Modi government in last eight years.
Source: Reply to Lok Sabha by Union Minister of state for Personnel Jitendra Singh
According to the Union Minister of State for Personnel, Jitendra Singh’ reply to the Lok Sabha in the monsoon session of 2022, over 22 crore aspirants had applied for the central government jobs in last eight years between 2014 and 2022. Out of the 22 crore applicants, only 7.22 lakh were successful in getting a government job. The year 2018-19 witnessed the lowest job creation by the central government as only 38,100 jobs were created. The following year witnessed the highest job creation in last eight years as 1,47,096 central government jobs were created in different ministries and departments of the central government. The highest number of job application were received in 2018-19 which witnessed the lowest job creation. Around 5,09,36,479 applications were received for jobs across various central government ministries and departments.
Therefore the data shows a different story as the job creation by the central government has been lower than the promised figures. Taking into consideration the number of applicants and jobs created by the central government over the last eight years, Narendra Modi’s dream of creating 10 lakh jobs over the next 18 months seems to be a difficult one to achieve.
But it should also be noted that apart from the direct job creation for filling the positions in the ministries and departments of the central government, the Modi government has launched a number of schemes which offers employment opportunities to the youth. Make in India, Start-up India, Digital India, Smart City Mission, Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) and Atmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) are some of the schemes launched by the central government aimed at job creation.
