No govt in 78 years provided 1 lakh jobs in its tenure like us: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Guwahati: Stating that over one lakh recruitments have taken place during his tenure, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday claimed no government since Independence provided jobs to so many youths in its ruling period.

Addressing a function to distribute permanent appointment letters to 23,956 contractual teachers and state pool teachers, Sarma said the government will give jobs to another 50,000 youths by next year.

"Prior to today's appointments, we have given jobs to 1,00,389 youths, which fulfilled our promise of providing one lakh jobs. If we consider today's appointments, there will be 1,24,345 jobs till now since May 2021," he said.

The BJP had promised to provide one lakh government jobs every year in Assam, during the campaigning of the 2021 assembly polls, but later modified that the figure was for the entire five-year tenure.

"In 78 years of Independence, no government could give one lakh appointments at one time. Our government has crossed that golden phase and we hope to achieve more such milestones in future," Sarma said.

The CM said another 50,000 appointments will be made by next year in various departments like education and police.

He said all the new appointees will be part of the National Pension System (NPS), which will automatically become Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) from April 2025.

Sarma said the state spends Rs 2,000 crore every year for paying salary to the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET)-passed teachers, and the amount is growing every year.

"When I as the education minister had first appointed TET teachers in 2012, I did not have the political support and my own government criticised me. We fought and disposed of over 500 court cases," said Sarma, who was with the Congress till 2015.

The Education Department will soon sanction 6,000 posts for headmasters across schools, he added.