Unemployment, poverty survey begins in Kashmir

from New Kerala

A state-wide survey to identify people living below the poverty line (BPL) as well as the number of unemployed youth in Jammu and Kashmir began Thursday, officials said.
BPL survey has started in all the 22, including eight new districts of the state, said Ghulam Ahmad Qureshi, director economics and statistics department, which is conducting the research. The survey would be completed by Oct 10.

Earlier, an economic survey had revealed that four percent of its 10 million population in the state was living below the poverty line.

Besides identifying the people living below the poverty line, the survey would also find out the exact number of the educated unemployed in the state.

At the moment, there are around 141,000 unemployed youth registered with various employment exchanges in the state, but many jobless youth have not registered themselves with any of the employment exchanges. The rough number of the unemployed youth is about 300,000.

"The survey is contemplated to provide the information about the number of educated seeking employment," Qureshi said.

"The idea behind the fresh survey is to have a comprehensive picture of the people living below the poverty line and also that of the unemployed youth that would help us devise proper planning as per the needs of the people," Qureshi said.