However, after four years of coming to power, Congress has failed to take any concrete steps to solve the chronic problem. And with a bulk of the voters belonging to the 18-30 age group, the issue may snowball into a major issue during the elections.

The number of unemployed youths registered in the 80 employment exchanges in the state has already crossed the 10-lakh mark and is steadily increasing over the years, posing problems for the planners. The number was 8.6 lakh in 1990. Every year 30,000 more are added to the number of jobless youths. By 1995, the number had touched 9.2 lakh and crossed the 10 lakh mark in 1999.

The most worrying factor is, there is no job in the state for engineering and medical graduates. A total of3,432 engineering and 1,742 medical graduates remained jobless by the end of 1998 pointing to the seriousness of the problem.

The number of unemployed graduates in other streams increased steadily over the years exposing the hollowness of the promise made by the state government to create enough opportunities for self-employment. The number of non-technical graduate unemployed youths which was 1.57 lakh in 1996 increased to 1.6 lakh in 1997. The number of unemployed graduates in the state was 1.1 lakh in 1990.

Another factor adding to the unemployment problem is the decreasing scope in the government sector for jobs. Only 10,033 registered unemployed youths were lucky to get government jobs in 1997.

However, the total employment in the public sector increased from 6.61 lakh in 1990 to 7.13 lakh in 1997 registering an increase of 7.9 per cent. In the organised private sector the total employment decreased from 1.09 lakh to 0.97 lakh during the same period.

The Eighth Plan strategy was to achieve nearfull employment by the end of the Ninth Plan. However, at the end of the Eighth Plan, the problem continues to persist on a large scale. During 1997-98 only 6.8 per cent of the labour force was employed in the organised sector. The remaining 93.2 per cent were left to seek self-employment or casual employment.