New Delhi: In what should be a matter of concern for the NDA government, not only is the unemployment percentage of several key states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Hary-ana, Tamil Nadu and Telangana is higher than the national unemployment rate of 6.1 per cent, even the nation’s capital New Delhi has the dubious distinction of having more unemployed persons than the national average.
Interestingly, the tribal state of Chhattisgarh has the least percentage of unemployment at 3.3 per cent in the country, whereas Nagaland at 21 per cent has the highest unemployment percentage. New Delhi and Chandigarh, though Union Territories, have high unemployment rates at 9.7 per cent and 9 per cent respectively.
Other states outside the Northeast which have high unemployment rat-es include Goa at 13.9 per cent, Kerala at 11.4 per cent, Haryana at 8.6 per cent, Punjab (7.8 per ce-nt), Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttarakhand (with 7.6 per cent each), Jharkhand at 7.7 per cent, Odisha (7.1 per cent) and UP at 6.4 per cent).
These are the figures of the Periodic Labour Force Survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Office in 2017-18. This incidentally is the same survey which had revea-led that unemployment percentage rate in the country was at a 40 year-high of 6.1 per cent.
Considering the fact that the national unemployment percentage rate is 6.1 per cent, the laggard states led by Nagaland, Goa and Kerala have double the percentage of unemployed persons.
These figures raise alarm bells at a time when the Narendra Modi-led government has come back to power at the Centre on the promise of employment generation.
Incidentally, it has also been running several employment and skill development schemes like Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Protsahan Yojana, which was launched by the Union Labour Ministry for incentivising employers for promoting employment generation.
Apart from this, two more key schemes of the NDA government, namely Pradhan Mudra Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, too are focussed on job creation.
In such a scenario, employment creation will be a tough challenge for the NDA government in its second coming.
