Industries Minister Harshwardhan Chauhan today claimed that the Congress government had provided 1,60,729 jobs, including 32,223 regular government jobs, to educated unemployed youth till December 31, 2025.
Replying to a debate under Rule 130 on generating employment opportunities in the Vidhan Sabha, Chauhan said the process to fill 18,000 advertised posts was currently underway and the government would be able to provide 50,000 regular government jobs by December 31.
The assurance, however, failed to satisfy the Opposition, with BJP MLAs staging a walkout from the House. Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur accused the government of not taking the unemployment issue seriously and alleged that it had failed to fulfil its promise of providing one lakh permanent jobs.
Chauhan said the government had already provided 50,000 regular jobs to educated youth and would achieve the target of one lakh regular government jobs by the end of 2027. He pointed out that the present government still had a year left in its tenure.
At the same time, Chauhan cautioned that it was not possible for any government to provide government employment to all unemployed youth in the state. “Himachal has the highest employees-to-population ratio in the country,” he said, stressing the need to expand employment opportunities in the private sector.
He said the unemployment rate in Himachal Pradesh stood at 6.5 per cent, according to the Economic Survey 2025, against 5.4 per cent nationally. The rate was 8.8 per cent in Punjab and 6.9 per cent in Delhi, he added.
Taking a political swipe at the BJP, Chauhan said the state had faced a “political disaster” in 2024 when an attempt was allegedly made to destabilise the democratically elected Congress government through the “Lotus Operation”. “We survived,” he said.
The minister also highlighted the growing burden of salaries and pensions on the state exchequer. He warned that a stage could soon arrive when the entire state budget would be consumed in meeting the salary and pension bill.
He said the government would therefore have to rope in the private sector to generate employment and attract investment. The state was also exploring avenues to generate additional revenue through controlled cannabis cultivation and lotteries, he said, arguing that Himachal needed additional resources for development.
Chauhan said the state’s debt burden had increased substantially over the years. The BJP government had left a debt of around Rs 76,500 crore when the Congress assumed office in December 2022, compared with Rs 48,000 crore when the BJP came to power in 2017, he claimed. The Congress government had also inherited around Rs 11,000 crore in pending employee arrears, he said.
Giving a department-wise breakup, Chauhan said the 32,223 government jobs provided till December 31, 2025 included 7,403 in Education, 3,037 in Jal Shakti, 2,133 in Forest, 1,427 in Police, 1,286 in HPSEB, 1,162 in Ayush, 957 in Higher Education, 766 each in the High Court and HRTC, 712 in PWD, 426 in Agriculture, 343 in Health, 259 in Animal Husbandry, 253 in Rural Development, 241 in HPTDC and 141 in Industries, besides appointments in other departments.