BHOPAL: The much-touted Rozgar Setu portal that was started to provide employment and registration of labourers has failed to attract private employers. Moreover, the portal that was said to bring the employer and job-seeker onto a single platform failed to serve its purpose.
The latest advertisement being displayed on the portal is dated August 31, 2020, from the gram panchayat at Gobara, in Morena district. It demanded 50 labourers for construction of a check dam. Scrutiny of the portal shows that advertisements for employment started coming in from June 30, 2020. The demand for labourers and other categories continued only till August 2020.
Launched with fanfare
This portal was launched with much fanfare by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on May 29, 2020. It was launched to register, and provide employment to, migrant labourers, initially, but the chief minister later asked the officials to make the portal a permanent platform to provide employment to the unemployed.
Most of the applicants were engaged in MNREGA and other government schemes, while private players did not show much interest in hiring people through this portal. According to the figures provided on the portal, only 44,644 migrant labourers were given employment letters — it is not clear if only letters were issued, or if one was really employed — while the process of employment of 46,690 labourers was in progress by private players.
The labour department, which is responsible for running the website, is now planning to link it with the Unnati portal of the Union government. “The Rozgar Setu portal had focused on migrant labourers and their employment. Efforts are on to make the portal more interactive and beneficial,” said Umakant Umarao, principal secretary, labour welfare department.
Umarao said that Rozgar Setu portal will be linked with the Union government’s Unnati portal, which has been launched with the same objective of providing employment and bringing the employer and job-seeker onto the same platform. The Unnati portal was still in its testing phase and might take some time to be launched formally, he added. This portal will help job-seekers to apply across India, whereas Rozgar Setu was confined only to Madhya Pradesh.
