Updated on: Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Agartala: Tripura has decided to fill up 4,712 government job vacancies in one go to tackle growing unemployment in the state, a minister said here Wednesday.
"The school education department has issued 4,712 job offers in the past one week," School Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty told reporters.
"We will offer several hundred government jobs in May for the unemployed youths." Currently, Tripura has 550,000 registered (matriculation and above) unemployed youths.
"As Tripura, like most of the northeastern states, has no big industries, government jobs are the main opportunity for the unemployed," the minister added. The Tripura government last provided bulk employment in 1996.
"The government has been following employment policy of 2002 that stipulates 70 percent jobs should be on seniority and merit basis and 30 percent need-based," Chakraborty said adding that the government had received 42,000 job applications since 2002.
He said that though there is no reservation for the Muslims, the state government has given more than 8 percent jobs to Muslim youths. Muslims constitute 7.95 percent of the state's 3.5 million population.
The minister rejected allegations about irregularities in providing government jobs. The main opposition Congress has alleged that the Communist Party of India-Marxist led government provides jobs only to party cadres and activists.