PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said his government has now decided to provide government jobs to 12 lakh youths, instead of 10 lakhs announced earlier, before the assembly polls next year.
Addressing the main state function on 78th Independence Day at the Gandhi Maidan here, he said, “Earlier, we had promised to provide government job to 10 lakh youths…but now our government has decided to provide government jobs to 12 lakh youths before the assembly polls, due next year (in 2025).”
“The state govt is fulfilling its commitment by providing government jobs and employment opportunities to youths.Under the ‘Saat Nischay Part-2‘ programme in 2020, it was decided to provide govt jobs to 10 lakh youths and opportunities of employment to another 10 lakh youths. The government is continuously working towards its goal.
So far, altogether 5.16 lakh youths have already been provided govt jobs. Besides this, the process of recruitment has already been completed for another 2 lakh posts. Now, we have decided to provide government jobs to 12 lakh youths, instead of 10 lakhs. The work of creation of posts and process of recruitment is continuously going on,” Nitish said.
“As far as the matter of employment is concerned, around 24 lakh people have been provided opportunities of employment in different sectors in the last four years. We have a target of providing employment to another 10-lakh people this year and the next year. Thus, a total of 34 lakh people would be provided employment, instead of 10 lakhs announced earlier, by the next year,” the state’s longest serving chief minister said.
The CM further criticized opposition leaders (without taking the name of anyone) for taking credit for providing employment while sharing power with him.
“These days, some people keep making claims that no recruitment used to take place before they were part of the government, and they had started the recruitment process. But I want to make it clear that it was my initiative to provide govt jobs to 10 lakh youths and we are working on it,” Nitish said.
Referring to the special financial package announced recently by the Centre for Bihar, the CM said he had continuously been speaking about the grant of special category status to the state or special financial package for Bihar.
“I am happy that the Union government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recently announced a special package for Bihar for several developmental and infrastructure projects in sectors like road construction, industries, health, tourism and flood control. We are thankful to Modi Ji for this special package announced for Bihar and I hope the Centre will continue to provide financial assistance to Bihar even in the future.”