You know that feeling when you're being made to run from pillar to post, from one department to another, to get information? And you run into a wall of silence? That's what opening each RTI envelope felt like ahead of Gujarat elections 2017.
It was exasperating and I'm only glad I didn't have to do this on foot.
This was one solid opportunity for the BJP government to spill the beans on the champion that vikas is to The Quint, but the mystery continues as does the absence of any campaigning around development this election.
3 Departments and Only 1 Response
The theme was employment and 7 queries were sent to three departments of the government of Gujarat. The Department of Labour and Employment, the Directorate of Employment and Training and the chief minister's office.
The working age population of Gujarat is 64 percent of the state’s population, and employment has been a burning concern ahead of these elections. Keeping in mind what the voters would want to know, here’s what we asked:
ONLY one query was answered. Our 7th query – on the number of youth unemployed in Gujarat. The RTI response from the Directorate of Employment and training said 5,87,263 job seekers were registered with employment exchanges as of 31 March 2017.
While these numbers are not accurate, they’re what we’ve got. The Quint, in this article Gujarat Elections 2017: Tall Claims of Employment Don't Add Up, tries to make sense of the government’s claims of having the second lowest unemployment rate in the country.
Why These Queries?
These pointed queries were asked because the BJP in its 2012 Gujarat assembly elections manifesto (Sankalp Patra) had made the following claims under the sub-head of employment:
BJP Poll Promises Before 2012 Elections
- More than 30 lakh jobs to be generated with the development of industrial and service sector.
- More than 30 lakh Gujaratis to be provided with self-employment and skill-development training under Mission Mangalam Scheme.
How did the government fare? We will never know.
Constant Transfers, Who Has the Information?
The RTIs filed to 3 departments have been transferred to each other and to other departments.
1. RTI filed to Chief Minister's Office.
The CM’s office acknowledged the queries and said they pertain to the Labour and Employment department.
Looking to the subject matter in the said application, it pertains to Labour and Employment department. Hence, it is requested to do the needful at the earliest.
Now as practice is with state or central government RTIs, the CMO's office should have transferred a copy of the RTI to the office and copied me on that transfer, but they didn't.
2. RTI filed to Labour and Employment Department.
While the CM’s office might think the answers lie with the Labour and Employment department, they don't think so. They too acknowledged the RTIs but said the information pertaining to the seven queries we had raised, do not fall within its jurisdiction.
The first and last query, on the total employment generated and the total unemployed youth in Gujarat, was transferred to the Directorate of Employment and Training. The 5 remaining queries were not transferred but recommended I “apply directly to the concerned PIO”.
3. RTI filed to Directorate of Employment and Training
While the Labour and Employment department believes the Directorate of Employment and Training has the answers to the total employment generated and the total unemployed youth in Gujarat, the Directorate of Employment only has the answer to the latter.
After taking a long and hard look at all the envelopes, the only query that received an answer was the last one.
While the BJP made huge promises in the manifesto released in 2012, we have no clue how the government has actually fared on the ground against these promises, in the five years preceding the election.
The government might want to keep this information from coming out in the public domain, but the odds that the unemployed will look for alternatives to vote for in the run-up to the Gujarat elections 2017 are real.
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