November 22: The Prime Minister's Employment Program launched by the previous government under the leadership of KP Sharma Oli has not been implemented properly even in the current fiscal year. It has been five months since the new fiscal year started but many of the people listed in the programme are still unemployed. Even the allocated budget is barely being spent.

Around 841,500 people have applied for jobs under the PM's Employment Programme this year including 387,000 male and more than 453,000 female applicants. The PM's Employment Programme Secretariat, which is under the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security informed that only 712 of them are employed and received the minimum wage.

They have been given the minimum wage at the rate of Rs 614 per day on an average. According to the secretariat, it is not possible to provide employment to 800,000 people this year. Also, not all the applicants are eligible for employment. Therefore, the government aims to provide employment to 200,000 people this year through the budget.

Lok Nath Bhusal, under-secretary of the PMEP secretariat, informed that the plan to provide employment is being carried out accordingly.

“Not all the applicants are eligible for employment. Around 200,000 applicants will be employed after selecting the eligible candidates from among the applicants. If the government arranges more budget, more people can be employed,” said Bhusal.

The government has allocated a budget of Rs 7.13 billion for the PM's Employment Programme this year. In the last five months, only Rs 99.4 million has been spent.

Bhusal says that this ambitious programme is not implemented properly this year due to the elections. He stated, “Because everyone's attention is on the election, the implementation of the programme has not been able to accelerate, it will gain momentum after the election.”

Last year, the government had allocated a budget of Rs 12 billion for this programme, but for the current fiscal year, Finance Minister Janardan Sharma allocated only Rs 7 billion. Even though the government is under intense pressure to amend the programme and make it production-oriented, it seems that implementation part is getting worse.

The World Bank has provide a concessional loan of Rs 14 billion in the name of 'Yeti Project' in order to implement this programme. This year, more than Rs 18 million of the said loan is being spent. Even though donor agencies have supported the programme, questions are being raised because it is not effective.