Neglected in budget, jobless graduates to launch continuous protest

November 22, 2011, 10:01 pm , The Island.

by Dasun Edirisinghe

Unemployed graduates, who had been waiting for nearly eight years to secure government jobs, yesterday threatened to launch a continuous protest campaign as the 2012 budget had neglected them.

Addressing a press conference in Colombo, Convener of the Combined Association of Unemployed Graduates, Lunugamvehere Kalyanaransi thera, said that they had high hopes that the budget would allocate funds to provide them with jobs, but it had failed.

"The 2012 budget totally neglected the unemployed graduates," he said adding this was the third time that the government neglected the issue in the budget.

Kalyanaransi thera said that the Rajapaksa government had promised 8,000 jobs in the 2007 budget and 15,000 jobs in the 2008 budget. In the 2009 budget, the government promised 17,500 jobs for graduates and it planned to recruit 14,500 as Jana Sabha Secretaries and 3,177 as aesthetic teachers.

But the government has broken all such promises, he said.

He said that the government completely forgot the issue in the 2010 and 2011 budgets.

Answering a query, Kalyanaransi thera said that there were more than 19,000 vacancies remaining in the public sector, but the government did not take any action to fill those vacancies with them.

However, there were 42,000 unemployed graduates waiting for jobs at present, he said.

According to him, they had already started their protest at provincial level. They have held protest marches and awareness rallies in the Southern, North Central and Eastern Provinces, he said.

"Our next protest would bring all our members to Colombo to participate in a demonstration," Kalyanaransi thera said adding if the government keeps turning ablind eye even after that they would resort to a continuous agitation.