S Gopal Puri
Shimla:
As Diwali lights up homes across Himachal Pradesh, it’s a dark festival for lakhs of educated unemployed youth who continue to struggle without jobs and haven’t either got some substantial unemployment allowance.
While Himachal Pradesh reels under an alarming unemployment rate of 29.6%, which is among the highest in the country, elected leaders, including the Chief Minister, ministers and MLAs have gifted themselves a substantial salary hike.
The revised salary structure that has been notified just ahead of the festive season raises the CM’s monthly salary to Rs 3.40 lakh while MLAs will now draw Rs 2.97 lakh, up from around Rs 2.10 lakh earlier. Office allowance alone has tripled for MLAs from Rs 30,000 to Rs 90,000 per month. The move comes even as the state’s debt nears Rs 1 lakh crore.
CM’s DA gift to employees, pensioners too
The Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government has also announced a 3% dearness allowance (DA) hike for state employees and pensioners. It has also released honorariums for outsourced staff and anganwadi workers.
The government has cleared pending payments for contractors, announced monetary compensation policies for outsourced staff and ensured that over 43,000 contract workers receive festive payouts. But for the over 8.46 lakh registered unemployed educated youth, there are no fresh job creation schemes or recruitments on the horizon, said Shrey Awasthi, the state convener of the Himachal Pradesh Unemployed Youth Federation.
Himachal’s unemployment worse than national average
According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) data from August 2025, the youth unemployment rate in Himachal (ages 15-29) stands at 29.6%, double the national average of 14.6%. The situation is grim in both urban areas (31.3%) and rural regions (29.1%).
Despite the crisis, the focus has largely remained on announcements for organised workers, with no major employment schemes rolled out for fresh graduates or the underemployed. The previous Jai Ram government provided 28,661 jobs, mostly on contract or outsourced basis, which too appeared to be a drop in the ocean compared to the total number of registered job seekers. Of them, only 3,109 got regular jobs, with 17,390 on contract, 7,747 outsourced and 415 daily wagers.
“For the jobless youth of Himachal, this Diwali brings little hope and no opportunities, just growing frustration. The stark contrast between the state’s decision to hike lawmakers’ pay and the silence on employment generation is highly condemnable,” says Shrey. He says that while the Chief Minister continues to promise “a brighter future”, for lakhs of unemployed, this festive season feels like a “Black Diwali”.
