Congress govts ready dole for jobless in MP & Rajasthan

Come March 1, unemployed youth in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh would get an unemployment allowance. Delivering on a poll promise, newly-formed Congress governments in Rajasthan and MP have started the exercise of registering unemployed youth for the dole.
Kamal Nath-led Madhya Pradesh government has formulated Yuva Swabhiman Yojana, a programme which is internally being termed as “urban MGNREGA”. The programme would not be a simple dole. The government has linked the programme to provision of state services.

The state government would first register unemployed youth through a missed call service, which would be started this week. A beneficiary would give a missed call to a number provided by the government and would register himself. On a designated date, the beneficiary would go to a centre to give all documents for verification. If found eligible, he or she would be able to get a minimum income of Rs 4,000 per month and 100 days of guaranteed employment.

The government would train the youth and involve them in provision of state services like water bill collection or electricity meter readings and property tax camps. This would mean that if private contractors were involved and pocketed a certain fee from bill colCanalection, it would now go to unemployed youth who would get skill training on the job as well. Madhya Pradesh also has a proper technical education module which would be given to the youth.


In sharp contrast is the Rajasthan government’s plan for unemployed youth. The state plans to give an unemployment allowance of Rs 3,000 to men and Rs 3,500 to women who are graduates with a family income of Rs 2 lakh or less per annum. There would be no employment or training opportunities with the government. The allowance would be directly deposited in their bank accounts starting March 1.

Unemployment allowance was a major poll promise made by the Congress in its manifestoes in the run-up to elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. While Rajasthan and MP have already started the process, Chhattisgarh has been the last one off the block. Like MP, Chhattisgarh is also planning to link it to provision of services. It would give an allowance for social volunteer work like manning cow shelters or running waste to energy plants being planned at the village level. A spokesperson of Chhattisgarh government said, “The modalities of the programme are being worked out. This should be finalised soon.”