New Delhi: On Sunday, Thousands of Anganwadi Women, youth, students workers from Delhi, Haryana, Mumbai and Bihar marched from Ramleela Maidan to Parliament demanding the implementation of ‘Bhagat Singh National Employment Guarantee Act’. Around 12 in the noon scores of Anganwadi Women holding banners listing their demands lead the march from Ramleela Maidan which was joined by students, workers from all walks of life. Raising slogans like ‘Give Employment to all or else leave the government!’, ‘Employment is everyones birthright and we shall have it!’, etc reverberated in the rally.
From Ramleela Maidan to Parliament street the rally of thousands of protesting women, workers, youth distributed pamphlets along the way, urging the common citizens to join the march for their right to employment.
Through BSNEGA the agitating youth and workers are demanding the Inclusion of the right to ‘permanent employment, equal rights and free education to every citizen’ in the fundamental rights by constitutional amendment. The rally was jointly organized by Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Disha Student Organization, Delhi State Aanganwadi Workers and Helpers Union, Krantikari Mazdoor Morcha, among several other organizations. The rally culminated in a public gathering near the Parliament.
Speaking to Ten News, Shivani,member of the BSNEGA campaign coordination committee, who is also the union leader of Delhi State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union said “In the face of the rising unemployment, if we look at some reports and statistics we can atleast stop blaming ourselves. In the Rajya Sabha, Cabinet Minister Jitender Prasad admitted that a total of 4,20,547 posts were lying vacant in the center alone. Nearly 10 lakh posts of Primary-upper-primary teachers across the country, 5,49,025 posts in the police department, 6 thousand posts in 47 central universities, 63 thousand posts in 363 state universities, are vacant. In 36 thousand government hospitals more than 2 lakh posts of doctors and 11,500 that of psychiatrists are lying vacant. Nearly twenty lakh posts are vacant at the level of the Centre and the States. The veteran leaders of BJP had pompously made electoral promises of giving two crore jobs yearly, but even after three and a half years of their rule only 5 lakh new jobs have been added according to the official labour bureau statistics. India’s unemployment rate was 3.8 percent in 2012, which reached 5 percent in 2015-16”.
