Telangana: Congress demands hike in upper age limit

Nampally: AICC National Spokesperson Dr Sravan Dasoju on Sunday demanded the Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao to increase the upper age limit of youth by 10 years to enable them to apply for all the job recruitment notifications issued in Telangana. "The upper age limit should be fixed at 44 years, as done in the past, from the existing 34 years that is eliminating millions of beleaguered unemployed and qualified Telangana youth from applying for new jobs in the state," says senior Congress party leader.

Dr Sravan today dashed out a letter to the Chief Minister in which he urged to consider the rising unemployment in Telangana as a social emergency and appealed to him to constitute a special taskforce to address the sensitive issue with high priority to make sure our youth are protected from the desperate and frustrated conditions. While setting aside politics, Dr Sravan requested an all party meeting to discuss the unemployment issues to find out a way forward to provide them adequate job opportunities in the public and private sectors.

"As you may be aware that the recent job notification issued on 31 March 2021 by TSPSC has reduced the candidates upper age limit at 34 years, thereby eliminating lakhs of unemployed youth who have aggressively participated in Telangana movement ever since the year 2009. The unemployment problem in Telangana and also the prevailing conditions of the pandemic Covid-19 outbreak crippled the normal life of every individual including the unemployed youth. In a context, where most of them are still eagerly waiting for their turn for a government job and to have better livelihoods, reducing the upper age limit to 34 years is a brutal shock to them", Dr Sravan explained.

He further stated that the majority of the unemployed youth are in deep distress, unable to face their parents, family and friends, unable to get married and settle in life and leading a miserable life. Some of them are finally committing suicides with hopelessness. He pointed out that the Government of Telangana had relaxed the upper age ceiling by 10 years through various GOs previously between 2015 and 2017 with which the candidateseligibility has gone up from 34 years to 44 years and that rational act certainly benefited some candidates in the past. But due to lack of big recruitments in the last 7 years, the youth got frustrated and left without any option other than to wait for a fresh notification.