Unemployment in India is a big issue, with millions of educated youth applying for government and private sector jobs. The situation in Jammu and Kashmir is no different. After several attempts, when youth become fed up, they tend to look for other options.
In a similar incident, Maqsood Ahmad Ganai set up a small juice stall by the roadside near his village, Hugam, in the southern Anantnag district, Al Jazeera reported on Monday.
On the way to the picturesque Pahalgam Valley, he waves at passing cars and offers freshly made apple juice to the travellers through his small juice stall, where he sells instantly made juice that costs 100 rupees in paper cups.
Ganai, a 38-year-old doctorate in botany from the University of Kashmir, has nearly 10 years of teaching experience on a temporary basis at a government-run college. However, has failed to secure even a temporary teaching position in the last five years.
Ganai claims to earn around ₹100-500 rupees a day, but he has no customers on some days. He supports his family with his money, including his mother, wife and a six-year-old son.
Ganai mentioned that he even applied for work through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, but most of the jobs involve unskilled manual labour, and he is ‘overqualified’ as a PhD.
“They said I was overqualified for the manual work. It frustrated me. That’s why I decided to sell juice so that I can remain busy and not lose my sanity,” Ganai told Al Jazeera. “My situation is not unique as many educated youth face the same economic struggles. We are left with few options to sustain ourselves.”
Ganai stands every day at his stall for 12 hours and returns with a bare income to support his family. “Seeing my situation, my mother cries thinking how much I had worked hard to study and become something,” he told Al Jazeera.
When he saw his students passing by his stall, Ganai said, “I hide behind trees because I am too ashamed to face them.”
Not only Ganai but his wife Rubia also holds a master’s degree in sociology from a Kashmir-based university and is jobless.
When the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government scrapped Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, it claimed that the move would bring economic prosperity to the region.
However, according to government data, the current unemployment rate in the region is 18.3 per cent, which is double the national average of 9 per cent, the report added.
Also, according to the Indian Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, in 2018-19, the unemployment rate in Jammu and Kashmir was 5.1 per cent. But now it's 18.3 per cent, and around a million residents in the region are jobless like Ganai.
