Extractive industries fail to address unemployment issue in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Mines-based industries are failing to make any significant dent on unemployment in Odisha, generating jobs for less than 40,000 while the number of registered unemployed youth has crossed one million.

Only 39,153 people of the state got jobs in 49 industries such as steel, energy and aluminium, Odisha Labor Minister Prafulla Mallick told the assembly.

There were as many as eight industries that had not crossed even the 100-mark in terms of jobs for the people of Odisha, he said.

The ranks of the unemployed, on the other hand, are swelling fast. Sources said more than 10 lakh people had registered themselves in different employment exchanges in the state.

According to the information given by Mallick in the assembly last week, Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd emerged as the biggest employer of people of the state, generating 4,588 jobs, including 2,772 at its Sambalpur plant alone, followed by National Aluminium Company (Nalco), which employed 4,400 people.

Sesa Sterlite employed 1,539 people from the state, followed by Jindal Steel and Power (1,526), Tata Steel (1,471), Aditya Aluminium's Sambalpur plant (1,044) and JSL Ltd (1,013).

(Inputs from IANS)

(Picture courtesy:www.odishabook.com)