“Curbing double employment is the solution to unemployment problem”- Citizen

TMI Bureau

Port Blair, July 10: Despite of some possible opportunities available for youths, unemployment is still remaining a concern due to various reasons in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

In the Government Sector: except A&N Police, IRBn, and A&N Fire Service, most of the departments have open gates for entry of mainland candidates while filling up any vacancy in the A&N Administration through online or by offline, which finally leads to grab the opportunities of islanders in the absence of domicile (law) in the A&N Islands.

Secondly, the recent recruitment of about 1000 MTS posts filled by A&N Administration for various departments in the A&N Islands. One can scrutinize, several highly qualified (B.Tech., Post Graduate, B.Ed., and Engineering, etc.) candidates were also applied for the Metric pass jobs (Multi Task Staff), and got selected for respective jobs as per merit, and the actual Metric or Intermediate qualified candidates were failed to compete with highly qualified due to obvious reasons.

In the Private Sector: here are vast opportunities available in the Islands for youths, thanks to our Hon'ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, for launching various loan schemes since 2015 to help the youths who have dreams to become entrepreneurs. Some youths are engaged with business groups like Tourism, Travels, Small & Micro Industries, Showrooms, Merchant Shops and Sales and Supplies, etc. in the A&N Islands and earning for their livelihood.

Still the concern of unemployment is one rise in the islands among youths due to some surprising reasons. Speaking to this correspondent an Auto-rickshaw driver said, "Sir, I am an Auto-rickshaw driver and driving Auto-rickshaw only, and I don't have any other job, just by this I am earning for my family. But, here are many Auto-rickshaws running in the city are driving by government servants especially the PBMC department workmen. Despite of their government service, they are competing in our business, what to do?"

Another private worker from Hut Bay, Little Andaman revealed a shocking tale on condition of anonymity, that "a Junior Engineer of Electricity Department at Hut Bay apart from his salary, is in regular practice of drawing payment in the name of a DRM (his wife) who never present in office, but always present in the attendance sheet for past a year". 

As per reliable sources, it is come to the notice that many government servants are involved in various businesses in the name of another person (Benami) from driving Auto-rickshaws to supplying items to the Departments and from Tourism Business to plying vehicles on lease in various departments. Consequently, the opportunities which are open to unemployed youths are getting closed by the greedy minds of government servants at several occasions. Thus, "unemployed youths are demanding for a strict vigilance to find the unhealthy minds in the A&N Administration which are becoming an obstacle between unemployed youths and opportunities. Curbing double employment is the solution to unemployment in the islands", says a citizen.