Educated unemployed in hills worried about lesser opportunities

EOI, PANIGHATTA, 7 May 2014: The educated unemployed youth of the Darjeeling hills are seemingly worried about the lack of employment opportunities in the region. They fear the situation in the hills could get worse and become like Nepal, where youths have moved to India or other countries for employment, creating a huge dent in educated youth numbers. Despite having numerable opportunities to create employment, lack of proper governance is increasing the number of educated unemployed youths in the hills at an alarming rate.

Darjeeling has no dearth in number of youth with degrees, but due to the lack of opportunities the educated unemployed youths are moving to other places such as Nepal, Behar and UP. Most of the youths work in private educational institutes as teachers or are employed in other professions.

The only problem in Darjeeling is the lack of employment opportunities and experts believe GTA has failed miserably on this front. They have suggested the authority to create more opportunities for the educated youth to prevent them from moving to other places. Experts fear if the situation continues in the same way, Darjeeling’s human resource rate will decline and the condition would be similar to what Nepal is facing currently.

Experts suggest employment opportunities can be created in sectors like tea trading, orange cultivation, juice factories, Ayurvedic medicine production etc. However, the authorities have been unable to take advantage of these easily available resources and create employment through for the unemployed. Further, the state government has also given GTA the responsibility of SSC and CSC sectors through which more jobs can be created, but is yet to make any progress.

The administration has also failed to create opportunities in various hill schools and colleges, where a number of posts remain vacant while equal numbers can be created. Experts believe, if these factors are taken into consideration, the youth of the hills who carry a degree will not look elsewhere for employment.