The Jharkhand Cabinet on Friday approved an employment policy that requires 75% of private-sector jobs up to a salary of Rs 30,000 per month to be reserved for local people, sources close to Chief Minister Hemant Soren said.
The decision comes days after Haryana notified its policy of reserving 75% jobs in the private sector up to a specified salary for local candidates.
“The CM will announce the new policy in the next week of the Assembly session, probably on March 17. A few modalities are yet to be decided; they will be announced in the Assembly,” a top source in the Jharkhand Chief Minister’s Office said. Soren had earlier said that the government was contemplating a reservation policy for locals.
According to the Economic Survey, the unemployment rate in Jharkhand rose to a peak of 59.2% at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in May 2020, before gradually falling to 11.3% in January 2021. In January 2020, the unemployment rate stood at 10.6%.
Friday’s Cabinet meeting is learned to have approved several other proposals as well; however, Ministers and officers remained tight-lipped on details.
The decision on the local reservation policy comes days after the Chief Minister met with stakeholders in Delhi to discuss a draft Jharkhand Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy, 2021. The state government also signed an MoU with FICCI on the sidelines of the event.
Surjitt Sahani
