January 16: The implementation of the Prime Minister's Employment Programme (PMEP) is found to be rather ineffective. The PM's Employment Program launched by the then government led by KP Sharma Oli with the aim of reducing the unemployment rate failed in effective execution even in the current fiscal year.

Only less than 5 percent of the budget allocated for this programme has been spent as of mid-January of the current fiscal year. Although the government allocated a budget of Rs 7.13 billion for the employment programme in the current year, only Rs 309.5 million has been spent. PM's Employment Programme Secretariat informed that although the government implemented the programme with the goal of providing at least 100 days of employment to 200,000 people who have been registered as unemployed this year, only 2,759 people are working in construction projects under the programme.

While the local levels are not showing interest in conducting the employment programme on time, the number of unemployed people who are listed is increasing. This year, registered unemployed citizens have increased by 100,000 compared to last year. A total of 708,245 people were listed in PM's Employment Program in the last fiscal year, which has reached 841,477 in the current FY.

Most of the academically-sound unemployed youth are not interested in registering their name in this list because they get work only for a few weeks in the construction project. However, as the registered people remain unemployed, the money that the local levels can spend is still unspent. This programme does not seem to be able to play a role in job creation.

The local levels show various reasons for not implementing this programme. The spokesperson of the programme, Loknath Bhusal says that many projects under the programme are not started due to the election. He said, “Since the projects have started, now the listed unemployed people have started getting jobs. We will provide employment to 200,000 people.”

A recent study by the National Planning Commission showed that the government took a loan of Rs 14 billion from the World Bank to run this programme, but its utilization is not effective.

The study suggested the government to take into account the overall aspect while determining the minimum wage rate, stating that the loan amount is overdue. After the formation of the new government under the leadership of Maoist Center Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, PM's Employment Program is given more priority.

It is clear from the fact that Dahal wants to continue this program effectively in the future as well since it is included as a priority in the minimum common program of the government. In the government's minimum program, it was announced to provide 300,000 jobs per year through the PM's Employment Program. However, the lack of improvement in the implementation even in the current fiscal year has raised doubts about its credibility.