UP Polls: Has Unemployment Chipped Away at BJP’s Youth Vote?

New Delhi: “Padh likh kar gobar paath rahi hun (After finishing my college, I am making cow dung cakes). This is what the Modi-Yogi governments have done to the educated youths like us,” fumed 21-year-old Rozy Kumari, an English graduate.

It was a chilly afternoon in the Ishwaripur village of Chakarnagar tehsil in Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district. The mercury had dipped to three degree Celsius. In a long verandah with unplastered walls and earthen floor, a few women were huddled around a bonfire — laughing and chatting. Cows and buffaloes tethered and restricted to sitting or standing in makeshift sheds, with smoke being emitted from burning husks and wood to keep flies, mosquitoes, and other pests away from the cattle, was a common sight in the village and was seen here as well.

Rozy was busy making dung cakes to be used as cooking fuel in a front corner of the verandah. When this correspondent asked if he could click a photograph of her, she politely refused as she did not want to be seen to the world this way. She was on the trajectory to become a teacher. She has already cleared the UP Teacher Eligibility Test (UPTET) and Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET). But the state government has made no appointment since 2019 when 69,000 teachers were appointed in the Basic Education Department.

Even after the recruitments, the shortage of teachers in primary, secondary as well as higher education has left the state’s education sector severely crippled. Most alarming is the condition of the primary schools, where out of the total 4.12 lakh sanctioned posts, as on April 1, 2019, 1.8 lakh posts lied vacant.

In the government-aided Parishadiya schools, 4,500 posts of teachers and 1,500 posts of clerical cadre are said to be vacant. Similarly, about 32,000 posts of teachers are vacant in aided schools in secondary education and about 6,000 posts in government schools. In case of the Higher Education Department, including aided and government colleges, about 8,000 posts are said to be vacant, as per the data.

UP’s youth unemployment rate has remained more than the Indian average for most of this period – except during the first lockdown in April-May-June 2020.

Eldest among her three siblings, Rozy does not surf social media because the family has only one smartphone. Her father Kamlesh is a small farmer with a landholding of 1.1 acres. The family income depends on agricultural farming and a small dairy business.

“I support the family income by stitching clothes,” she said. “The Yogi government claims that it has provided lakhs of jobs, most of those claims remain on papers. There have been no appointments for years,” she added.

AND THE STORY CONTINUES...

Ram Tirath Yadav, a resident of Balampur village in Ghiror block of Mainpuri district, had voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last three consecutive elections — Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019 and Assembly elections in the state in 2017, hoping that the new government will bring about changes, develop infrastructures, and create jobs.

However, he now feels that he, along with lakhs of other youths in the country, have been cheated. “All the big promises made by (Prime Minister) Modi ahead of the three elections turned out to be a mere lip service,” he alleged.

The 31-year-old is a post graduate in mathematics. He then earned a Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed), formerly known as the Uttar Pradesh Basic Training Certificate, to become a teacher at primary and elementary schools.

He has also qualified UPTET and CTET. However, he is surviving on less than Rs 10,000 — which he earns by running a coaching centre in his village.

“The state has a terrible employment situation. Almost all government departments have 50%-70% vacant posts. Despite the Yogi government bringing down sanctioned strength in various departments in lakhs, the state still has five lakh vacancies. But the government does not seem to have any plan to fill them up,” he said.  

Applications were invited in 2016 for appointment of 69,000 primary school teachers, but the appointments were made three years later, in 2019. “I had applied, but failed to make it to the merit list because appointments were made in violation of the existing reservation system. Since then, there have been no vacancies. The government announced vacancies for 17,000 teachers for primary schools when the elections knocked on the door,” he said, adding that the wait for recruitment to start has become “never-ending”.

He said the state has around 97,000 vacant posts for primary school teachers, 27,000 posts for trained graduate and post graduate teachers, 12,000 seats for LT grade teachers, 52,000 vacancies in the police department, including 50,000 vacant posts of group C. In all, he said, around five lakh posts are lying vacant across the state in different departments.

Yadav is landless and solely depends on what he earns from the coaching centre. “With prices of everything skyrocketing, it has become difficult to meet expenses of the family with my meagre income,” said the father of a baby girl. 

Sandip, a resident of Lakhanpur village in Badaun district, said that the Yogi government in the state will face serious consequences for not fulfilling the vacant posts. “No major recruitment drive was launched in the state in the past five years. There has been no appointment even in the defence forces in the past five years. When the elections came close, applications for the post of lekhpal were invited, but there is no guarantee of appointments,” he alleged.

Job announcements and elections are often interlinked in India. The Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) had announced the NTPC vacancies in February 2019, just before the Lok Sabha elections. Afterwards, it was put on the backburner. Twice in 2021, protests broke out online, but they didn’t become a poll issue.

Also, the process of appointment takes over two years to complete here — from notification to joining — and that too, under ideal conditions, which usually don’t persist.

Sandip said students from well-off families pursue engineering and medicine in big cities. “We can’t afford these expensive courses; so, we pursue B. Sc., BA and MA in general disciplines and prepare for government jobs,” he added.

Amit Yadav, a final year B. Com. student – also from Lakhanpur – is preparing to enter the armed forces or the state police force. “No vacancy has been announced in the defence forces since 2016. There has been no recruitment in the police department as well. Our future appears to be bleak under this government and therefore, it must go,” he added.

A resident of Kunda in Pratapgarh, 28-year-old Dharmendra Sahu has been preparing for a government job in Prayagraj for the last five years. He gets Rs 4,000 for monthly expenses. He lives in a shared rented accommodation and has to pay a monthly room rent of Rs 2,800. 

“My father is a farmer and I couldn’t afford engineering or any other professional courses. So, I decided to prepare for government jobs for the security they offer,” he said.

He is agitated because of the delays in conducting examinations for different recruitments. “Delays in appointments because of paper leaks and irregularities are normal. The Covid has given the government an additional excuse not to conduct examinations in time and delay the process of appointments,” he alleged.

He said staying in the city with the little funds that his family can afford has become difficult for him. “I used to offer tuitions to children, but the pandemic took this source of income away,” he narrated.  

Joblessness among urban youth of UP was just above 23%. That means, nearly a quarter of youth aged between 15 and 29 years are recognised as unemployed.

The situation has prevailed for the past nearly three years. It predates the pandemic. In the third quarter (October to December) of 2018-19, urban youth unemployment was at a jaw dropping 29% in UP, significantly higher than the average for India which stood at a distressing level of nearly 24%.

GOVT IN DENIAL

The government is unwilling to even accept that unemployment exists in the state.

Siddharth Nath Singh, minister of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in the Yogi government, said, “There is no crisis of unemployment as alleged. We provided 2.64 crore jobs to people.”

However, the claim is not backed with data. In 2018, at least 93,000 aspirants applied for a peon’s job in UP, including 3,700 PhDs. For the last few years, aspirants have been protesting over irregularities in several exams. In December 2021, aspiring teachers protested and alleged irregularities in the UP-TET exam to recruit 69,000 assistant teachers in the state.