KTR calls PM’s Rozgar Mela a cruel joke on unemployed youth

Hyderabad: Punching a hole in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claims over the Rozgar Mela, IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Tuesday wrote an open letter to Modi, exposing how the mela was another drama from the BJP ahead of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections. Accusing the BJP and Modi of cheating […]

Hyderabad: Punching a hole in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claims over the Rozgar Mela, IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Tuesday wrote an open letter to Modi, exposing how the mela was another drama from the BJP ahead of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections.

Accusing the BJP and Modi of cheating people again by promising 10 lakh government jobs across the country, Rama Rao said the Rozgar Mela was a cruel joke on the unemployed youth of the nation.

---

Unemployment remains a major concern and it should seriously addressed immediately, he said, asking in his letter why the Prime Minister, who promised two crore jobs per annum, had now reduced it to a mere 10 lakh with appointment letters given only to 75,000.

“Your remarks that the country’s financial condition is going through a difficult period also raises doubts on your promises. But I remind you that the current state of economics is only due to the failure of your administration’s policies,” he said.

Reminding Modi about a similar letter written by him on June 9 this year, Rama Rao said he had not received a response till date. He urged Modi not to confine himself to electoral appeasements and instead, take real measures to address the issue of unemployment in the country.

Demanding to know the fate of 16 crore jobs i.e. 2 crore jobs per year promised by the Modi regime before coming to power in 2014, the Minister wanted the BJP government at the Centre to release a white paper on the number of jobs it had filled in the public sector so far. In the last eight years, the Telangana government took up appointment to 2.24 lakh government jobs, with over 1.5 lakh jobs already given and the process to give the remaining jobs already on. The State government also created more than 16.5 lakh job and apprenticeship opportunities in the private sector.

“How many jobs did you, as the Central government, provide across the country? If the Telangana government alone filled 2.24 lakh jobs, how many jobs should the Centre fill in all 28 States?” he asked.

Rama Rao pointed out that over two lakh Central government employees were retiring every year and the government was not even filling 50,000 posts per annum. He stated that through privatisation of public sector undertakings, the union government was denying thousands of jobs to eligible youth. By promising to fill 10 lakh jobs including 75,000 government jobs, the Prime Minister was mocking the unemployed youth in the country, he said.

Demanding to know what kind of message the Prime Minister was sending by handing over appointment letters to 75,000 persons, Rama Rao said the union government had itself admitted that only seven lakh jobs were filled in the last eight years till June this year and over 16 lakh posts were vacant in the public sector. He dared the Centre to release a job calendar and asked what prompted the BJP government to take up the recruitments just one and a half year ahead of the general elections, after ignoring the same for over eight years.

“At a time when the country is facing its worst unemployment crisis, your promise to fill only 75,000 jobs in public sector is a cruel joke on the unemployed youth. It is nothing but a drop in the ocean,” Rama Rao said, also warning that if the BJP government continued to deceive the youth repeatedly in the name of jobs and ignored the unemployment problem, the day would come soon when they rise in revolt against the Modi regime.