Days after the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) put the unemployment rate at 30.6 per cent in Haryana; Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, on Tuesday, said the state’s unemployment graph is continuously declining.

Replying to a question regarding unemployment in the state during the question hour in the budget session of state Assembly, Khattar said the rate of unemployment in the state has decreased in comparison to what it was during the tenure of the previous Congress government.

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He said CMIE is a private organisation and there is no reliability and credibility for such data released by any private organisation.

“The CEO of this institution is also a member of the election manifesto of the Congress party. In the year 2017, this agency had shown the unemployment rate of Haryana at two per cent. Sometimes it claims it to be 34 per cent and sometimes 26 per cent, which has no credibility,” he added.

Khattar said CMIE issues unemployment rate after conducting the sample survey of only 5000 population out of the total of 1.80 crore population. The CM said at present, the number of applicants registered with various employment exchanges in February 2023 is 6.46 lakh, while in December 2014 the number was 7.86 lakh.

“The government has made tireless efforts to provide employment opportunities to the state youth. Along with government jobs, employment opportunities have been made available to the youth in the private sector as well,” he said.

Khattar said the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) is conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation from time to time. According to the PLFS report, the unemployment rate in Haryana was 8.6 per cent in 2017-18, 9.2 percent in 2018-19, 6.5 per cent in 2019-20, and 6.3 per cent in 2020-21.

The CM said the Reserve Bank of India also releases such data every year. According to the RBI the unemployment rate is 8.1 per cent. However, there is no fixed formula for these figures, so the figures of different agencies also differ, he added.

“In eight years we gave more than one lakh government jobs in comparison to 86,000 during Congress’ 10 years regime,” Khattar said. He said 86,000 government jobs were given in 10 years from 2005-2014, while during our tenure more than one lakh jobs have been given in eight years.

The CM said under the Haryana Skill Development Mission, employment opportunities have also been made available to more than one lakh youth by skill development. “After 2015, employment has been provided to 12.64 lakh youth in the private sector as well,” he said.

Khattar said the data of every person is linked with the Parivar Pehchan Patra and on the basis of self-verified data; the number of unemployed in the state is 10.46 lakh. However, there is a section of the society which is not unemployed but actually under-employed, he added.