CM distributes job appointment letters

Rubbishing the Opposition’s charges of low-salaried jobs in Government-organised job fairs, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday said that the highest package was given at Rs 31 lakh per annum.

Taking the Government’s flagship ‘Ghar Ghar Rozgar te Karobar’ scheme to the next level, Capt Amarinder on Sunday distributed as many as 9,592 more appointment letters, taking the total number of jobs generated during his Government’s first year to 1,61,522.

The event, to mark the distribution of the appointment letters at the culmination of the second Mega Job Fair, coincided with the first anniversary of the Congress victory in the 2017 Assembly polls, which paved the way for the installation of Capt Amarinder Singh Government.

The job fair was organised by the Government at 150 venues from February 20 to March 8. Major corporates, including Maruti Suzuki, Microsoft, ICICI Bank, Amazon, etc, used the platform to hire talent.

The Chief Minister congratulated the youngsters who got appointment letters while thanking the large number of corporates for taking part in the job fairs. Pointing out that over 1.61 lakh youths had got jobs in the first year of his Government, Capt Amarinder claimed that this was no mean achievement.

He expressed happiness that in addition to other sources of employment, including university placements, another 90,000 jobs were being generated by 15,000 MSMEs that had registered themselves with the Industries Department during 2017-18.

The Chief Minister rejected Opposition charges that the job fairs were facilitating only low-paying jobs, saying that the packages offered in the fair ranged between Rs three lakh and Rs 31 lakh per annum.

“There were eight companies that gave over Rs 12 lakh per annum packages, 12 companies with packages over Rs 10 lakh a year, 24 with Rs seven lakh per annum packages and 66 that provided salary packages of Rs 5 lakh a year,” he said.

Capt Amarinder urged the youngsters not to pursue only government jobs under the notion they were better paying.

Reiterating his Government’s commitment to fulfil the pre-election promise of ‘Ghar Ghar Rozgar’, he said that the Government was on the right track, with plans to set up various universities, including skill development, sports and horticulture.

The Congress Government had created an environment of peace in the State to facilitate progress, he said.

Peace is of critical importance for the State and he would not allow anyone to disturb it, vowed the Chief Minister.

The State Technical Education Minister Charanjit Channi reiterated the Government’s commitment to fulfilling its promise of ‘one job per household’. The Department was planning to organise even international fairs to attract prospective employers from outside the country and provide the youngsters with a bigger platform for getting jobs, he said.

Finance and Employment Generation Minister Manpreet Badal also underlined the Government’s commitment to the relentless pursuit of its ‘Ghar Ghar Rozgar’ mission saying that what had been achieved so far was just the beginning.

Punjab Congress president and Gurdaspur MP Sunil Jakhar hailed the Capt Amarinder Government’s efforts towards mitigating the problems of the people, who had been deprived of opportunities for growth for a decade.

“The Government has restored law and order in the state, with the elimination of gangsters is a major achievement. It has also restored the trust of industrialists,” said Jakhar, congratulating the Chief Minister for providing industry with a single-window for clearances to facilitate ease of business.

Jakhar lamented the lack of employability in the existing education system, which was completely degree-oriented. He stressed the need for revamp of the system to make education skill-based and to enable the youth to become technically educated.

An official spokesperson later said that besides 16,130 recruitments done by the Government through advertisements against vacancies, a total of 83,385 job placements had been done by the Employment Generation Department, the Technical Education Department and the Punjab Skill Development Mission from April 1, 2017, till date.

Among other jobs generated, 25,718 were attributable to regular recruitments by various department and 36,022 had been created under the self-employment schemes.