Srinagar, May 10: If the Census 2010 is taking a toll on smooth functioning of different government departments and educational institutions in Jammu and Kashmir, the unemployed youth have a solution: engage them.
Armed with degrees, diplomas, and certificate courses, the youth believe they should be engaged in the Census exercise beginning with ‘House Listing’ on May 15.
“Instead of engaging teachers and other government officials, the Census Department should engage the unemployed youth in the exercise. This way you can retain teachers in the schools and employees in other departments,” a group of unemployed youth told Greater Kashmir.
According to reports, many schools in Kashmir division have ‘virtually closed’ as the teachers are busy with the Census training and refresher courses. “Many unemployed youth possess Bachelors and Masters Degrees. Why don’t you ask them to conduct the Census if education of enumerators or supervisors is a mandatory requirement,” said Zahid Rafiq, a candidate who has appeared in the recently held KAS examination. “Or you can do the other way round. Engage teachers in the exercise fully and give the unemployed educated youth a leave-chance to teach in the schools. This way they will be able to earn their livelihood, and also the academics in the educational institutions won’t suffer.”
Pertinently, the Census Department is engaging 37,000 government employees as enumerators and supervisors for Census 2010. They are being paid Rs 8000 to Rs 10000 from 15 May to 30 June during which each enumerator will have to list 160 houses. “You can pick the well-qualified youth among the 4.5 lakh unemployed and give them proper training to conduct the Census. Once that is done, I don’t think the government has any reason to fear any problems in holding the Census,” Rafiq said. “This time you are conducting census at the cost of career of hundreds of students, and also the smooth functioning in departments from where the officials have been deployed. You can easily address the problem provided you mean business.”
The Census authorities, however, argue that engaging the unemployed youth is no option. “We just can’t do that because the enumerators or supervisors have to be the government employees. That is a mandatory requirement,” said Director, Census, Farooq Ahmad Faktoo.
He refutes that the Census will have any effect on the functioning of government departments or schools. “It is a part-time job that we are assigning to them. On an average, an enumerator will have to list three houses per day. And I don’t think that is a big deal. And then we have been insisting that they can go to their departments and do the job before or after the working hours,” Faktoo said. “We have also been insisting that the Education Department can engage Rehbar-e-Taleems in Census as we are paying the enumerators a good honorarium. But in any case we can not engage anyone other than civil servants,” he said.
Faktoo’s assertion, however, is countered by the youth, saying the state government can make a ‘special case’ to the government of India in this regard. “You can write to the GoI and ask them for some relaxation with regard to engagement of unemployed youth in Jammu and Kashmir,” Rafiq said adding that in Kashmir so many days in a year are lost in hartals and the imminent closure of offices and schools due to Census would aggravate the problem.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 10 May 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 10 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 IST