Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Ch. Anil Kumar said that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind was selling a false, rosy dream to the unemployed youth, promising them 20 lakh jobs in five years in the “Rozgar Budget”, though the sad reality was that Arvind could not fulfill his promise of generating 8 lakh jobs in five years, which he had assured in his election manifesto eight years ago. He said that shockingly, the budgetary allocation for the Employment Exchange, whose job is to find employment for the youth, has been slashed which clearly explains the Arvind Government’s misplaced priority and intentions of the “Rozgar Budget”.

Ch. Anil Kumar said that taking into consideration the job loss of youth during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Arvind  Government should  have enhanced the allocation for the Employment Exchange, instead of drastically slashing it. He said that with the growth of the population in Delhi, the unemployment rate has been going up too, which has reached a critical level after the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, and the closure of many small and medium industries, in the absence of any financial support from the Arvind Government, who spent crores of rupees for his personal publicity and unimportant matters.

Ch. Anil Kumar said that Arvind has perfected the art of telling lies to fool innocent people, as he had done in Himachal Pradesh recently, where he claimed that the AAP Government in Punjab had banished corruption in “20 days”, as AAP had “ended” corruption in Delhi!

Ch. Anil Kumar said that there is no synergy between Arvind’s words and the proposals in the Rozgar Budget, as Arvind does not have any idea how 20 lakh jobs would be generated. He said that Arvind was misleading the poor, unemployed youth with high-sounding phrases like “Rozgar Bazaar”, “Dilli Bazaar” and “Shopping Festival”, without realizing that such gimmicks will not bring jobs to the unemployed.

Ch. Anil Kumar said that CM Arvind had loudmouthed about promoting start-ups, but the Delhi Government did not spend even three per cent of the start-up funds earmarked in the budget. He said that the Industry Department under the Delhi Government had assured to start an Export Promotion campaign last year, but even 10 per cent of the allocation was not spent for the scheme, and the budget for doing “Ease of Business” witnessed a 33 per cent reduction. He said that it was shocking that only Rs 5 lakh provision  was made in the budget to promote job opportunities to the educated youth. He said that CM Arvind also shut down the scheme for the empowerment of women by giving them interest-free loans for which there used to be provision in the Budget, which clearly shows the anti-woman mindset of the Arvind Government towards empowerment of women, to help them stand on their feet.

Ch. Anil Kumar said that Delhi Congress has been demanding for long that the vacant posts in the Delhi Government should be filled  to provide at least some jobs to the unemployed, but that hope has been shattered with the Arvind Government’s anti-youth policy. He said that according to information accessed by Delhi Congress through RTI, over 15 lakh youth have registered with the Delhi Government’s Employment Portal, out of which only 3800 youth got some kind of sustenance jobs. He said that like the Congress Government, which implemented the Mahatma Gandhi Grameen Rozgar Guarantee Yojna, the Arvind Government should implement something like the Shahari Mazdoor Employment Guarantee Scheme to generate jobs.