May 4: The government had announced to provide minimum employment to 200,000 people under the Prime Minister's Employment Programme (PMEP) in the budget of Fiscal Year 2020-21. However, only 82,500 people have received short-term jobs under the program so far.
According to the Secretariat of the Prime Minister's Employment Programme, 21,054 individuals in the Far West, 16,200 in Karnali, and 15,600 in Province No. 2 have received short-term jobs for an average of 12 days. According to the PMEP Secretariat, Rs 579.5 million has been distributed under the programme so far. In the current fiscal year, 753,166 people have applied for jobs under the programme. However, not all applicants are eligible for employment.
According to the criteria of PMEP, a family member can be employed for a minimum of 100 days only if he/she is unable to earn any income from anywhere else.
The secretariat informed that more than 10,500 programmes worth Rs 7.86 billion have been selected in the current fiscal year to employ those who are eligible for employment. In the current fiscal year, Rs 10.34 billion has been allocated to implement the employment program.

To implement this programme from the current fiscal year, the government had received a concessional loan of Rs 13.65 billion from the International Development Association (IDA) under the World Bank.
Expanding the scope of the programme from this year, the government has announced to employ the unemployed in public development works at the federal, state, and local levels. However, the implementation of the programme so far has not been effective.
According to Loknath Bhusal, Joint Secretary at the Prime Minister's Employment Programme Secretariat, the program was running effectively at the local level until the first week of April.
However, implementation of the program suffered a setback due to the prohibitory order in various parts of the country.
"Some local level representatives and employees are not in a position to run the office. The prohibitory order has made it difficult to promote employment activities," Bhusal said.
So far, more than seven hundred thousand unemployed individuals have submitted applications for employment for the upcoming year through the Prime Minister's Employment Program.