Chief Minister Conrad Sangma today said that employment rate in Meghalaya is around 3 per cent, which is less than the national average that stands at 4.7 per cent.
He said the government is working towards creating close to 5.5 lakh job opportunities in the next five years.
Replying to a query raised by Nongstoin MLA Gabriel Wahlang, the Chief Minister informed that the jobs will be created through the different programmes.
He said the government is implementing several schemes and programs for creation of employment opportunities. These include MGNREGS, CM ELEVATE, PRIME program, FOCUS, FOCUS +, mission mode programs in agriculture, Meghalaya grassroots music project, CM youth centre, national rural livelihood mission, skill Meghalaya.
The Chief Minister said in the last three to four years, the government has created roughly 2.34 lakh job opportunities in major departments, like in the medical department.
He said over 500 jobs were created mainly for doctors alone and over 300 for nurses and other technical staff. “We had in the police department close to 1000 who were employed. In the teaching department we had close to 1000 who were employed. If you look at big sectors we are touching almost 3,000 jobs created in last three years. Apart from different casual or contractual employees, and different jobs created at district level those numbers haven’t been able to collect as it is vast,” he stated.
The Nongstoiñ MLA also raised a question on why the district selection committees did not conduct recruitment in the last two years.
To this, the Chief Minister disagreed stating that recruitments have been carried out but not at the “desired level.” Sangma said there could be one or two district with less recruitment and the reason was due to Covid-19, court cases in terms of roster. He added that after roster system was implemented there was confusion and complications in terms of clarifications by the DSC where they had to take approvals from the personnel department before calling the interviews.
However, he said the scenario has changed at present as the DSC can now go ahead with recruitment and can consult the personnel department only if there is any confusion.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition Ronnie V Lyngdoh sought a breakup as per the chief minister’s vision to create 5.5 lakh jobs.
In his reply, Sangma said that the government is targeting 2.5 lakh job opportunities in the agriculture and allied sectors. “In the NRLM, in the last five years we have created 1 lakh job opportunities for women. These are registered jobs and now we are targeting another one lakh jobs to be created,” he said, adding, that in the skill-based they are targeting 1.2 lakh and employ at least 15 per cent.
Under the Tourism sector, the government expect direct to indirect tourism projects to be created approximately 50,000, based on the investments made.
The Chief Minister added that under the CM Elevate they expect a minimum of 50,000 jobs to be created because they will be supporting over 20,000 enterprises. The government expect large number of jobs to be created in the IT sector. “We expect direct indirect employment almost 25,000 to be created in IT Sector,” stated Sangma.
He added that in the government organisations on a contractual basis and consultants and others, they will create at least a minimum of 10,000 jobs within the department.
The Leader of Opposition suggested the government to also create jobs for engineers and doctors, who have chosen jobs not linked to their degree due to unemployment.
However, the Chief Minister said it is not possible to map every skill and degree. “There may not be a 100 per cent opportunity in terms of education they have, but opportunities that come up through these different programs sometimes go beyond what meets the eye,” he said.
