PATNA, Oct. 10 -- In a major poll promise, leader of the opposition in Bihar assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Thursday announced that all those families in the state having no government jobs would be given employment in state government, once his party led government came to power after the assembly polls. "Every family in the state not having a government job would be given employment in the state government. A special law would be enacted for implementing this and the promise would be fulfilled within 20 months of our government, if voted to power," Yadav announced here at a presser. Significantly, Yadav stressed the caste-based data of 2023 carried details of how many families were not covered under government jobs and his party would rely on the data to implement the job promise. "We have the data in the caste-based socioeconomic survey. We will do it scientifically. There is no problem in generating jobs. Political will is required," Yadav said. In the 2023 caste-based survey, over 9.4 million families were categorised as poor, having a monthly income of Rs.6,000 out of around 20 million households in the state, which has a population of around 130 million. There are 1.57% of the state's population, totalling around 2.4 million people, who were recorded as having government jobs while 1.22% were in organised private sector. At least 67% of the population were in the category of homemakers, students, etc, as per the 2023 survey. Calling his promise as completely doable, Yadav emphasised that CM Nitish Kumar and BJP leaders had mocked him when he had first promised during the 2020 pre-election campaign that one million jobs would be given to youth, if his government came to power. "We made it possible by giving five lakh jobs during our short stint in power for 17 months from August '22 to January '24. Though we made the achievement, I am not satisfied with it. In the next five, if we come to power, government jobs would help every family to attain higher economic progress," Yadav said. "This is just one batch of promises being made after the assembly polls have been announced. We will do more announcements for Bihar's progress. The 20 years of NDA government led by CM Kumar has failed to usher development and implement many of the promises like giving pucca houses, clean drinking water and ration," Yadav said. Political observers feel, the job promise by Yadav, who is eying the chief ministerial post, is a strategic ploy by the RJD to woo families from poorer sections not covered under government employment as well as also reach out to unemployed youth by promising government jobs. "The RJD's poll promise looks like a move to expand the job promise to unemployed and poorer sections in a bid to counter NDA's recent sop of giving allowance of Rs.1,000 to every unemployed graduate as well as promise of generating 10 million jobs in next five years," said Rakesh Tiwary, political observer. National general secretary, JD(U) Shyam Rajak said the poll promise was like selling dreams which would never be fulfilled. "What is wrong if one asks everybody to daydream? These are all lofty promises and would never be implemented," Rajak said. JD(U) state spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan said Tejashwi's promise lacked credibility and did not have any financial road map of how to sustain such large-scale employment in government sector. "CM Kumar has already promised 10 million jobs and given over one million government jobs. Other recent announcements made recently have been approved by the cabinet with full financial support and proper implementation. On the other hand, the RJD's tenure has been infamous for its scams, corruption, mismanagement, and poor law and order. If NDA comes to power, all promises of generating 10 million employment opportunities would be successfully fulfilled," Ranjan said....