Sita Sharma

Kathmandu, Feb. 1: A total of 7,830 people have received employment of minimum 100 days from various local levels under the Prime Minister Employment Programme.

Although the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security had provided the budget for the employment programme in August, only 7,830 people have been benefitted until now. The government has planned to provide employment opportunity to 200,000 people by the end of the Fiscal Year 2077/78.

According to the Prime Minister Employment Programme Division under the Labour Ministry, Province 1 has been able to provide employment to a maximum of 2,493 people while the least is at Province 2 with only 106 beneficiaries. Likewise, 1,757 people have received job opportunity until now in Karnali Province, 1,151 in Sudurpaschim Province, 540 in Gandaki Province, 829 in Bagmati Province and 954 in Lumbini Province.

Bharanmani Pandey, spokesperson of the Labour Ministry claimed that the local levels had not given priority to the implementation of Prime Minister Employment Programme. "The budget was furnished on time but the local levels have not taken the programme forward," he said.

"Targeting deprived citizens, the government had introduced the employment programme. But due to the negligence of local levels, they are not being able to get benefit from it," added Pandey.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Rural Municipality in Nepal and Municipality Association of Nepal said that due to the technical difficulties, they were unable to implement the programme smoothly.

Chairman of the Municipality Association Ashok Bayanju said, "Even though the employment programme is a progressive programme, due to various challenges in technical and policy-based implementation, it has not been able to attract people."

"Discussions are being held in order to simplify the implementation of the employment programme," added Bayanju.

"The government should provide us the jurisdiction to formulate work procedure and standards at the ease of local level in order to implement the programme effectively and sustainably," he said.

Published on: 1 February 2021 | The Rising Nepal