KCR humiliating jobless youth by avoiding unemployment issue: Uttam Kumar

Hyderabad: Congress MP and former TPCC president Capt. N. Uttam Kumar strongly criticised the BRS government headed by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao for humiliating the jobless youth of Telangana by not addressing the issue of unemployment in the last nine years.

He was addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday along with AICC Telangana in-charge Manikrao Thakery, Youth Congress president Shivsena Reddy, Mahila Congress president Sunitha Rao, and other senior leaders.

Unemployment allowance

Uttam Kumar Reddy said KCR’s failure to provide jobs or unemployment allowance could not be called just negligence. He said KCR openly humiliated them by ruining their careers and claimed that more than 40 lakh people in Telangana, including nearly 25 lakh qualified youth who registered themselves with the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC), were jobless. Alleging that the BRS government, which is about to complete its second consecutive term in power, failed to address this problem, the Congress MP said KCR had promised an unemployment allowance of Rs. 3,016 to the jobless youth in the 2018 elections but it has so far remained unfulfilled.

Unfilled vacancies

The Congress MP pointed out that KCR had announced on the floor of the Telangana Legislative Assembly on 9 March 2022 that his government would fill 80,039 posts in various departments through direct recruitment and regularise the services of the remaining 11,103 contractual posts. As per the report of the CR Biswal-headed Pay Revision Commission (PRC), as against the 4,91,304 sanctioned posts in different departments, there are only 3,00,178 employees. It means that the government needs to fill 1,91,126 posts and not just 80,039. Even after one year after promising to fill 80,039 posts, the BRS government did not fill a single vacancy, he alleged.

TSPSC leak

Further, Mr. Uttam Kumar said that almost all exams held by the TSPSC were hit by suspicion due to the question papers leak. “CM KCR did not speak a word about the leak. More than 15 question papers under six categories of competitive exams were allegedly leaked. Why did the KCR government object to the CBI probe into the question paper leak?” asked the Congress leader while demanding that the Chief Minister apologise to all the affected candidates, pay compensation, and take measures to get the entire TSPSC sacked.

State of Unemployment in TS

Explaining the intensity of the problem of unemployment in Telangana, Mr. Uttam Kumar said the number of unemployed persons in the state more than doubled in the last nine years. Citing instances, he said about 3.80 lakh candidates applied for 503 Group-1 posts. On average, there are 756 applications for each post. The applicants include 2.53 lakh graduates, 1.23 lakh postgraduates, and 424 PhDs. Similarly, more than 12.6 lakh candidates have applied for just 17,291 posts of sub-inspector, assistant sub-inspector, and constables in police, prison, fire, transport, and Prohibition and Excise departments. Therefore, there are 73 applicants for each post. “These statistics clearly show the depth of unemployment among educated youth in Telangana. There are no jobs for qualified youth either in the government or private sectors,” he said.

The Congress MP said that unemployment was too high among BCs, SCs, STs, and minorities. Of over 12.6 lakh candidates who applied for police jobs, nearly 53% are BCs, 22% are SCs, and 19% are STs. Even if promised posts are filled, about 12.40 lakh applicants will remain jobless with literally no assistance from the state or Central governments, he said.

Vacancies in state universities

Speaking about the vacancies in state universities, he said over 4,000 sanctioned posts in government institutions, including at UG and PG levels, were vacant. Universities like Osmania, Kakatiya, Mahatma Gandhi, and Palmuru are facing severe faculty crunch as no recruitments have been made after Telangana formation, he said. Posts of more than 2,000 professors and assistant professors in 11 universities of Telangana are lying vacant, affecting the quality of education, the MP said and added that the KCR government deliberately neglected state universities so as to favour private universities which it sanctioned in the State.

Pending fee reimbursement and scholarships

Mr. Uttam Kumar also condemned the BRS government for not clearing the fee reimbursement and scholarship dues of nearly Rs. 4,592 crores. He said nearly 15 lakhs students are dependent on fee reimbursement and lakhs of poor students were either forced to discontinue their higher studies or their parents had borrowed money on high interest to clear the fees and get certificates. He said the BRS government did not honour the High Court order which directed it to release fee reimbursement funds in three instalments in a particular academic year. He also highlighted that at least 100 minority institutions were forced to shut down under the KCR regime due to the non-clearing of fee reimbursement dues. He said poor minority students lost over 40,000 seats, including engineering, MBA, MCA, and other professional courses.

Meanwhile, Private Colleges Association president Satish Mudiraj said that the state government did not release the funds despite issuing BROs and distributing tokens to the colleges.

Mr. Uttam Kumar said the previous Congress government used to pay the entire fee for all students under the fee reimbursement scheme. However, he said the BRS government has been burdening the poor SC, ST, BC, and minority students. Citing an instance, he said the fees for BTech courses which were previously Rs. 38,000 has now been increased to Rs. 70,000, but the government did not increase the scholarships provided to the students along with the fee reimbursement to that extent. Similarly, as against the fee of Rs. 37,700 for PG in a private college, the fee reimbursement is only Rs. 20,000. As a result, the remaining Rs. 17,700 has to be paid by the student. Apart from these, the college management is asking for an additional Rs. 5,000 in the name of the lab and other facilities, the MP alleged.

He also slammed the BJP government at the Centre for neglecting the issue of unemployment. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to give 2 crore jobs every year. At this rate, at least 16–18 crore jobs should’ve been created. Instead, crores of jobs were lost due to the wrong policies like unplanned lockdowns and faulty GST, Mr. Uttam Kumar said.

Addressing the press conference, Manikrao Thakre said the KCR government has not fulfilled the expectations of unemployed youth, pushing them into depression. He said KCR has been deceiving the people for the last nine years. He said AICC general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi, in the meeting, planned to be held at Saroornagar Stadium on 8 May, will speak about the injustices done by the BRS and BJP government to the youth. He said Priyanka Gandhi would announce Hyderabad Declaration, making specific promises that would be immediately fulfilled after Congress returns to power in the next Assembly elections.

The Congress leaders appealed to the youth and students to participate in large numbers in Priyanka Gandhi’s meeting.