the goan I network
PANAJI
Navelim MLA Luizinho Faleiro on Sunday assured to introduce ‘The Goa Unemployment Assistance and Self-Employment Scheme Bill, 2018’ in the upcoming monsoon session of the Assembly.
Addressing the press on the eve of Revolution Day, Faleiro said the bill revisits his “Employment Policy for Goa 1991”, which envisaged employment for everyone who had a working knowledge of Konkani and 15 years domicile to join government service, which was implemented to the extent of about 80%.
Pledging his support to the government on providing employment to all educated youth in the State, Faleiro said, “I will support Parrikar in any good decision he may take to remedy the situation.” The situation Faleiro is referring to is the fact that youth in the state with graduate, post graduate and professional degrees like engineering are unable to find jobs and hence either take to drugs out of idleness, or go abroad. He pointed out that as things stand, of the 41,906 unemployed graduates in the State, 28,143 are girls, while 13,763 are boys, while the total unemployed people in the state amounted to 1,22,006.
Faleiro said that it was the duty of the government to see that the youth is gainfully employed or self-employed, and if this is not possible, then unemployed youth should be brought under the bill to be introduced. If passed, the bill will provide “unemployment assistance” for unemployed youth, in the whole state of Goa, and is to cover all youth who have completed SSC or an equivalent degree (except in the case of those belonging to SC/ST/OBC who will be considered if they have appeared for the SSC exam) who have been unemployed for a period of three years or more.
The minister also said that the “Right to Employment” was introduced in the country under the 16 flagship schemes brought out by the UPA. However, this scheme has either not reached Goa, or is not effectively implemented. “In my constituency itself,” he said, “lots of educated people are asking for jobs.”
Faleiro also highlighted the fact that nationalised banks are not recruiting Goans. On the contrary, busloads of people from outside the state take these jobs. “A lot of Goans opt for foreign passports, not because they love Goa in any way less than those of us who are here, but because they have lost hope,” he said.
While stressing that it was possible to employ 100% of Goans, he spoke of contractors, i.e. job agents, whose task is to employ people for companies in Goa, and how they inevitably choose people from out of the state to fill up positions. He appealed to the government to take away what he called the “pain” from educated, unemployed youth, not as someone from the opposition party, but as someone who was equally concerned about the well-being of Goans and Goa as the ruling party is.
