Kathmandu, March 10

The government has sought applications from those interested to participate in the Prime Minister Employment Programme (PMEP). Issuing a public notice today, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security (MoLESS) has said that job aspirants need to apply for the jobs before April 13.

As per PMEP, the government will guarantee jobs for a minimum of 100 days to those who are unemployed. The much-awaited programme was unveiled by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on February 13.

The government will also ensure that all the unemployed people will get 50 per cent of the minimum wage that it has set if they remain unemployed for 100 days and none of their family members are employed for a year.

The government had set a monthly minimum wage of Rs 13,450 for workers on July 9 last year. Hence, such families will receive Rs 22,417 annually. The amount that the government will dole out will be equivalent to 50 per cent of the government-set minimum wage for 100 days.

As per MoLESS officials, the ministry has allocated a budget of Rs 3.5 billion for the programme for the current fiscal year.

As per the guidelines, which was formed by MoLESS, job aspirants need to submit their applications at the local level. Earlier, the ministry had opened applications for the post of employment coordinator in all 753 local levels of the seven provinces through an online system. Meanwhile, government has selected employment coordinators for all but 232 local levels as none of the candidates in those concerned local levels were able to pass the initial computer based examination.

The government has established Employment Service Centres at all local bodies to collect data of unemployed youths.

Moreover, the employment coordinator will work to collect data of the unemployed persons at the respective local level, update it and provide identity cards to the listed unemployed people. It will also facilitate employment opportunities for them while making recommendations for various kinds of skills-oriented training programmes.

As per the programme, the government will deploy the unemployed youths in government identified sectors like agriculture, tourism, construction, transportation, energy and power, forest and environment, among others.