After the election, hill youths ask: “Where are the jobs

With the Assembly elections over and a new MLA in place, the biggest question among young people in the Darjeeling hills is not who won – but what will change for their jobs and future. For many hill youths, this is another election where they campaigned, voted, watched results – and then went back to the same struggle for work in tourism, tea gardens, small homestays and gig jobs in the plains.

Official reports and tourism studies show that tourism and tea together generate more than 80 percent of employment in the Darjeeling hills, directly and indirectly. When tourism collapses because of agitations, landslides or elections, hill youths are the first to lose work – as hotel staff, drivers, guides, porters and café workers. Even in “good” years, many work on short contracts, daily wages or commission, with no social security and no guarantee of stable income.

In March 2024, the state panchayat and rural development department notified recruitment to over 500 vacant posts in gram panchayats and panchayat samitis in the hill districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong under the GTA. Around 331 posts in gram panchayats and 35 in panchayat samitis of Darjeeling district, along with 151 posts in panchayats and 18 in panchayat samitis of Kalimpong, are expected to be filled – posts like executive assistant, accounts clerk, nirman sahayak, data entry operator and secretary. GTA chief executive Anit Thapa said these appointments would create new employment opportunities for educated hill youths and improve rural governance.

At the state level, the government has been pushing schemes such as Swami Vivekananda Swanirbhar Karmasansthan Prakalpa (SVSKP) to support self‑employment for unemployed youths through subsidised loans and group enterprises. Under SVSKP, individual youth can receive a government subsidy of up to 90,000 rupees, while groups of five or more can get up to 2.1 lakh rupees to start small businesses, with support routed through the West Bengal Swarojgar Corporation. However, activists say that many hill youths struggle to navigate paperwork, bank conditions and collateral requirements, and need stronger hand‑holding and local mentoring to actually benefit from such schemes.

Earlier this year, the Bengal government also launched the ‘Banglar Yuva Sathi’ scheme, promising a 1,500‑rupee monthly allowance to unemployed youths aged 21 to 40 for up to five years. Media reports from February 2026 showed long queues at registration camps across the state – from coastal Kakdwip to Kalimpong in the hills – with lakhs of degree holders and even PhD scholars lining up for the scheme, underlining the depth of youth unemployment in West Bengal. While such cash support may ease immediate pressure, hill youths say it cannot be a substitute for stable jobs and long‑term economic planning.

According to youth opportunity data compiled from official sources, West Bengal’s overall unemployment rate is relatively low – around 2.2 to 2.6 percent – but the picture is very different if you zoom into the 15–29 age group and high‑education segments. National PLFS data show that urban youth unemployment in the 15–29 age bracket is above 15 percent, with even higher rates for young women, indicating that a large share of educated youth remain jobless or under‑employed despite being counted in the labour force. For hill towns like Darjeeling, this translates into B.A. and M.A. graduates driving taxis, doing delivery gigs or preparing endlessly for competitive exams while living on family or seasonal tourism income.

Tourism continues to be projected as the main engine of jobs in the hills, with state leaders stating repeatedly that homestays, rural tourism and transport have opened up new opportunities for hill youths. Over the past decade, hundreds of homestays have come up in villages around Darjeeling, Kalimpong and the Dooars, and many young people have purchased vehicles to work as tourist drivers. But climate‑driven landslides, political shutdowns and now election‑season cancellations have made tourism income extremely unstable, pushing many youths to migrate to cities or Gulf countries for more predictable earnings.

“हर चुनावमा युवाहरूलाई रोजगारी दिने वाचा सुनिन्छ, तर ground मा चाहिँ temporary काम र season मै सिमित tourism,” says a college graduate from Kurseong, now working part‑time in a hotel while preparing for government exams. Youth groups in the hills are increasingly demanding a mix of solutions: faster filling up of vacant government posts under GTA and panchayats, serious investment in slope‑safe infrastructure jobs, and real support for start‑ups in fields like IT services, agro‑processing, local media and eco‑tourism.

For a new MLA in Darjeeling, the mandate from young voters is clear: less slogan, more appointment letters and project‑based jobs that can actually keep youths in the hills. Without that, the story after every election will remain the same – photos of victory rallies on the Mall, and a silent, anxious queue of youths at job camps and scheme counters the very next week.

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