Unemployment in India is a big issue, with millions of educated youth applying for both government and private sector jobs. The situation in Jammu and Kashmir is no different. After several attempts, when youth become fed up, they tend to look for other options.

In a similar incident, Maqsood Ahmad Ganai set up a small juice stall by the roadside near his village, Hugam, in the southern Anantnag district, reported Al Jazeera.

On the way to the picturesque Pahalgam Valley, he waves at passing cars and offers freshly made apple juice to the travellers through his small juice stall, where he offers instantly made juice costs 100 rupees in paper cups.

About Ganai:

Ganai is a 38-year-old doctorate in botany from the University of Kashmir and also has nearly 10 years of teaching experience on a temporary basis at a government-run college.

However, has failed to secure even a temporary teaching position in the last five years.

‘Hide behind trees’:

Ganai claims to earn around ₹100-500 rupees a day, but on some day, he has no customers. With the money he earns, he supports his family , which includes his mother, his wife and a six-year-old son.

Ganai mentioned that he even applied for work through Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA, but most of the jobs involve unskilled manual labour and he is ‘overqualified’ as a PhD.

“They said I was overqualified for the manual work. It frustrated me. That’s why I decided to sell juice so that I can remain busy and not lose my sanity,” Ganai told Al Jazeera. “My situation is not unique as many educated youth face the same economic struggles. We are left with few options to sustain ourselves.”

Ganai stands every day at his stall for 12 hours and returns with a bare income to support his family. “Seeing my situation, my mother cries thinking how much I had worked hard to study and become something,” he told Al Jazeera.

When he saw his students passing by his stall, Ganai said, “I hide behind trees because I am too ashamed to face them.”

Not only Ganai, but his wife Rubia also holds a master’s degree in sociology from a Kashmir-based university and is jobless too.

What do stats say?

When in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government scrapped the Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, it claimed that move would bring economic prosperity in the region.

But, according to government data, the current unemployment rate in the region is 18.3 percent which is double the national average of 9 percent, added the report.

Also, as per the Indian Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, in 2018-19, the unemployment rate in Jammu and Kashmir was 5.1 percent. But now its 18.3 percent, with around a million residents in the region are jobless like Ganai.