July 11: The implementation part of the Prime Minister's Employment Programme initiated by the then government led by KP Sharma Oli is found to be weak. The inability of the programme to provide employment to the targeted group has raised quite a few eyebrows.

Despite the government's goal of providing employment to the unemployed by establishing employment centers in the villages, many unemployed people are still unable to find jobs. Despite their desire to work, unemployed people are deprived of employment due to lack of proper implementation of the programme.

The employment programme is being carried out with the support of donor agencies including the World Bank since its inauguration. In the current fiscal year, 708,129 unemployed people registered their names at the employment centers designated by the government. Among them were 3,70,259 men, 337,733 women and 137 people of other gender.

According to the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security, only 123,993 people among them have been employed as of May this year. Statistics show that the number of people who received employment under this programme in the previous years was not encouraging as well.

According to government data, only 172,270 people got minimum employment in the fiscal year 2075/76, 1,05,626 in the fiscal year 2076/77 and 181,091 in the fiscal year 2077/78.

Analyzing the data, 458,000 unemployed people got minimum employment in the first three years since the implementation of the programme. Adding this year, it reaches 581,000.

Although government statistics show that almost 150,000 people are employed every year, the compulsion to go abroad in search of greener pastures has not diminished.

The Prime Minister's Employment Programme does not provide year-round employment. The goal of this programme is to provide employment for at least 100 days in each year.

In the fiscal year 2075/76, some of the listed people were employed for a total of 13 days. Records show that some unemployed people were employed for just 16 days in FY 2076/77 and 76 days in FY 2077/78.

The government started implementing the programme by modifying the structure after being criticized for allegedly misusing the budget allocated under the Prime Minister's Employment Program for other works.

Danduraj Ghimire, program director of the Prime Minister's Employment Programme, admits that he is criticized for running projects of a general nature for the time being to address local needs.

To make this program effective, the Prime Minister's Employment Programme Operation (Second Amendment) Directive-2078 BS was recently passed by the Council of Ministers. The reason for changing the directive was to make it practical as the previous directive included the same wage rate for all the three geographical regions of the country, mountains, hills and terai.

“The same wage rate does not seem practical in all places, so the guideline has been amended and the wage rate has been implemented on the basis of the local wage rate or the current fixed rate of 577 per day. However, many of those listed have not been able to find employment,” said Ghimire.

On the other hand, the budget of the Prime Minister's Employment Program for the upcoming fiscal year has been reduced.

In the budget of the upcoming Fiscal Year 2079/80, Rs 7.5 billion has been allocated to create employment for an additional 200,000 people listed in the employment centers opened in the villages. The government had allocated more than Rs 12 billion for the current fiscal year. In the upcoming policies and programmes issued by President Bidya Devi Bhandari, it is mentioned that the Prime Minister's Employment Programme will be restructured in a way that would establish ownership of all.

The policies and programmes states that the Prime Minister's Employment Programme will be implemented in an integrated manner by studying the effectiveness of the programmes related to employment, skill development and entrepreneurship. However, the budget does not explicitly mention any of this.

The government has made arrangements to provide employment only for the construction of roads in the local levels or for building infrastructures, river control measures, irrigation and tree planting programs. However, there is a tendency to spend the budget of this programme even on general work as well.

According to the employment expert Dr. Ganesh Gurung, the government is still unable to implement this programme in such a way that would be inclusive for the youths returning from foreign employment.