Important certificates overflowed his file, his eyes are running through the columns of newspapers and different sites, beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead, tired and heartbroken he cried out his heart placing his head in his mother’s bosom, as if wanting to hide the grotesque reality that he is still unemployed…
Unemployment is the greatest challenge that India is facing today. Unemployment is a situation where the person willing to work, fails to find a job that earns him a living. The reasons for this unemployment situation are high population, defective education system, excessive burden on agriculture, low productivity in agricultural sector combined with lack of alternative opportunities for agricultural workers, unskilled workforce, etc. Though millions of students are pouring out of educational institutions every year, they are jobless. The supply of jobs is much less than the huge demand. The reason for this huge demand is the increase in population by leaps and bounds. This again gets directly linked up to poverty which aggravates the situation. Due to poverty, illiteracy has spread its harmful tentacles and in the course of time pushed the Indian youth into anti-social activities. Even if they become educated, the failure of getting job according to their capacity makes them hostile and thus results in strikes and protests. Big cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai all are pressurised with the influx of rural folk who come here in the hope of better prospects and as a result create pressure on the civic amenities.
A little push in the right direction can make a big difference. But are the institutions aware of this? Probably not. The best solution to overcome this problem is to vocationalise the education system. India lacks in the field of entrepreneurship and thus, must focus on producing entrepreneurs. They also promote capital formation and employ resources leading to value addition to a specific industry. According to the present situation, among all the nations of the world the number of students enrolled in higher education in India is the highest, but is it valuable? The youth are getting jobs quite lower than their qualifications or are forced to become the brains of other countries and become productive for other countries because they get more job satisfaction and salary there than in India.
Indian economy is also being hampered due to this problem. It is essential therefore that the economic policy of the country be overhauled. We have to create new avenues in cottage and small scale industries. Besides this, efforts must be made to promote the knowledge of family planning. Gradually the older system of joint family is breaking up and people are opting for nuclear families. Thus, there is a need to create employment opportunities for almost all, while in the joint family the scenario would have been something else.
The Union Government is very keen on checking the problem of unemployment. Several schemes are being initiated. A recent scheme is “One Family, One Job” launched by the Chief Minister of Sikkim where the scheme envisions employment to a member of every family which does not have a government job in the state. Provisions for training of youth for various programmes so that they are capable of setting up their own business and loans must be provided in different forms and situations. The most important thing to focus on is the proper utilisation of government machinery, schemes and programmes and if the education is job oriented, India will definitely see a future free of this chronic, serious and multidimensional problem—Unemployment.