Rajasthan CM promises one lakh Government jobs

Jaipur, March 13 (IANS) Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Friday said that her government would provide jobs to one lakh youths in the government sector, having already provided over 165,000 jobs, mostly in the private sector, last year.

"We have provided jobs to 1,45,566 youths in private and about 20,000 persons in the government sector in the past one year," Raje said while replying to the debate on State Budget 2015.

Announcing to provide 100,000 jobs in her reply, the chief minister did not divulge the time-frame around which her government would offer these jobs.

But she added: "The state government would keep its promise of creating employment opportunities for 15 lakh youths."

She flayed the previous Congress government for setting-up of refinery in the state.

"Despite the state contributing for double the amount of the total cost of this project, its share was limited to merely 26 percent.

Against the total cost of Rs.37,400 crore, the state gave commitment to pay Rs.56,400 crore in cash, water, road and 4,800 acres of land at a nominal cost of Rs.300 crore only," the chief minister said.

It seems that no financial and economic analysis was done for this project, she added.

Tthe Ashok Gehlot Congress government in the state had entered into Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with HPCL for establishment of 9 MMTPA refinery cum petrochemical complex at Barmer district at an estimated cost of over Rs. 37,230 crore in March 2013.

In pursuance of MoU, a JV agreement was signed in July 2013 between HPCL and Rajasthan government.

The proposed refinery was to be a subsidiary of HPCL with its equity of 74 percent to be held by HPCL and 26 percent to be held by the government of Rajasthan.

Raje also came down heavily on Congress government's decision to run metro rail project.

"During my last tenure in the state, experts were consulted for Jaipur Metro project and they suggested it to be unviable. Despite this, the previous government started Jaipur Metro with project cost worth Rs. 11,732 crore.

"In its first phase only Rs.3,400 crore were being spent to cover 11 kilometers. With this amount 110 flyovers or 5,000 kilometre long roads could have been laid, which would benefit the pubic directly," she said.

Raje said very soon the state government would announce new mining, tourism and IT policies.