Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that 25,450 vacancies have been filled in various government departments in Jammu and Kashmir till December 2022.

The minister in a written reply, said the Government of J&K, has carried out several governance reforms, including in the area of recruitments in Government.

“Large scale recruitment drive has been carried out after formation of the Union Territory in the most transparent manner,” he said.

He further said that 33,426 vacancies of Gazetted and Non-Gazetted categories have been identified in Jammu and Kashmir, out of which 25,450 vacancies have been filled till December, 2022, while recruiting agencies have advertised 7,976 vacancies for recruitment.

He also said that the identification of vacancies in the Government and recruitment is a continuous and on-going process and the same is taken up under Accelerated Recruitment Drive.

“The Government of J&K has taken various initiatives to bring down un-employment by implementing various self employment schemes through different departments by providing subsidized loans for establishment of their own sustainable income generation units.”

He said a number of self-employment schemes like Mission Youth, Rural Livelihood Mission, Himayat, PMEGP, Avsar, Tejaswani are being implemented for providing employment opportunities.

“From the results of the Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS) conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), estimates of unemployment rate is not available specifically for the educated youth in Jammu and Kashmir for the period April-June 2021,” he said.

He said however, from the PLFS conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) during July 2020-June 2021, estimate of unemployment rate according to usual status among the persons of age group 15-29 years for Jammu and Kashmir was 18.3 per cent.