Rehabilitation policy sought for jobless youths returning to Himachal Pradesh

DHARAMSHALA: In various parts of the state, people have returned home after losing their jobs. Kangra district with the maximum population in state of 20 lakhs has witnessed a return of 38000 people from other states out of which nearly 8000 have lost their jobs. The authorities are also working on the figures of such people to deal with the situation later.
A youth found positive for Covid-19 in Shahpur area on late Friday evening, was employed with a courier company at Delhi and had returned home after losing his job.He had returned on April 28 and informed about his illness on May 5 to the authorities.
This is not the only case of state youths losing their jobs. Many people have shared their agony on social media handles also.
Himachal is already among top states for unemployment rate. According to the data released by think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) this year, Himachal Pradesh is the third state with highest unemployment rate.
Tripura topped the unemployment chart with 28.6 % in December 2019, followed by Haryana with 27.6% and Himachal 20.2%. The national average was 7.7%.
Bhupinder Pathak, a government official at National informatics center talking to TOI revealed that they usually receive many distress calls from the people who have lost their jobs in other states and want to return home now.
Not only officials, but almost every politician is also getting such calls from their supporters informing them about job losses.
Former minister GS Bali, who has raised the issue of unemployment allowance during congress regime, has demanded that the government should also think that this is the high time when this allowance should be released to thousands of jobless people.
"Government should think of the revenue sources and forming a rehabilitation policy for these youths", he added.
The authorities have started working upon such figures to handle the situation in future. When asked, deputy commissioner at Kangra Rakesh Kumar Prajapati said that they are getting such information and figures are being prepared for the same. "It will take time to compile the whole data". he added.
One of the member of the teams deployed to make this data revealed that figures for Kangra district may come around 8000 of jobless youths coming back to their homes. The number of people returned to this district so far is about 38000. In state, the number of people returned to their homes after relaxation is creeping near 1 lakh. State government has not announced any rehabilitation policy so far for these youths.