BALOCHISTAN is backward merely because its vast resources have remained untapped and unexploited. As things stand, unemployment is only a logical fallout. The entire pressure, as such, is on the provincial government to provide jobs to the jobless.

The small industrial area is close to Karachi which also provides the bulk of the labour force. Guards and peons, at best, happen to be the locals.

The government is the biggest employer proving jobs to hundreds of thousands of people at different levels. Since the government itself is not involved in economic activities on a large scale, independent economists consider it to be the salary-distributing agency of the State.

Presently, there are 2 95,000 employees in different government departments. The Education department has the highest number of employees with 67,732, followed by 49,000 in the Police department, and 32,987 in the Health department.

Though the government has planned to create around 6,000 more vacancies in the next year’s budget, observers and people at large are looking forward to some windfall in the shape of CPEC. Besides, if the provincial government plays it cards well and convinces Islamabad to execute Balochistan’s quota in the federal services, it may provide hundreds of thousands of jobs for the educated young.

With no infrastructure beyond Quetta, and negligible foreign investment, if any, job-creation is a serious hassle in the province. Against this backdrop it is interesting that the government recently announced 25,000 vacancies that had accumulated over the last many years. As it unfolded, the government has to fill them all up by end of June this year or, under the rules, they would stand lapsed.

These vacancies are the biggest hope for the hundreds of thousands of jobless educated youth in Balochistan. Even though just around six weeks remain in the deadline, no more than 3,500 have been recruited and even they have not been issued an appointment letter.

The whole issue is surrounded by allegations and counter-allegations of corruption, nepotism and misuse of authority made worse by a tug of war between the ministers and the bureaucracy. During a recent uproar in Balochistan assembly, it surfaced that a large number of vacant posts had been filled up through a draw in the Services and General Administration Department. A committee formed to investigate the matter has yet to come up with its findings.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2017