A comprehensive look at the layered challenges facing Kashmir Valley residents—from record joblessness among educated youth to a massive anti-drug campaign, reservation policy protests, and the daily struggle with inflation and unreliable services
By: Javid Amin | 26 December 2025
When Multiple Crises Converge
The morning air in Srinagar carries more than the winter chill this December. It carries the weight of uncertainty that has settled over Kashmir Valley like an unwelcome fog. Across districts from Anantnag to Baramulla, families wake each day to navigate an intricate web of challenges that test their resilience at every turn.
This is not the story of a single crisis—it is the account of how multiple pressures converge to reshape daily existence in one of India’s most sensitive regions. Unemployment numbers that rival the worst in the nation. A drug epidemic severe enough to warrant a five-month government mobilization. Student protests over reservation policies. Rising food costs. Unreliable electricity. Crumbling roads. Complex vehicle compliance rules. Each problem feeds into the next, creating a survival economy where stability feels like a distant memory.
The Jammu and Kashmir government revealed in October 2025 that 3.61 lakh educated unemployed youth are registered across the Union Territory, with the Kashmir Division bearing the heavier burden. But raw statistics only tell part of the story. Behind each registration number stands a family postponing weddings, delaying home construction, and watching educated sons and daughters slip into frustration.
This ground report examines how ordinary Kashmiris cope when the system strains under accumulated weight—and what it would take to ease the pressure before bending becomes breaking.
The Employment Desert
The Magnitude of Joblessness
Kashmir’s youth unemployment rate has surged to 17.4%, far exceeding the national average, while overall unemployment stands at 6.7%. In specific urban wards of Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag, joblessness among youth has touched 32%.
Among the 3.61 lakh registered unemployed, 2.33 lakh are male and 1.27 lakh are female. Srinagar district leads with 23,826 registered unemployed youth, followed by Anantnag with 32,298. Even the districts with the lowest numbers—Kishtwar at 8,870 and Reasi at 12,376—represent thousands of families living with economic anxiety.
Nearly 46% of educated youth remain unemployed in Jammu and Kashmir, indicating persistent structural gaps, according to the Economic Survey 2025-26. This is the second-highest educated unemployment rate in India after Kerala.
When Education Becomes a Burden
Bilal Hussain’s story could be anyone’s story. The 26-year-old MBA graduate from Anantnag starts each morning at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, newspaper classifieds spread before him, scanning for vacancies that rarely materialize. He represents a paradox unique to Kashmir: the more education you acquire, the harder survival becomes.
For those without higher degrees, earning a livelihood through manual labor or small businesses seems relatively easier, but for the highly qualified, the tag of education becomes a burden. Social expectations, years of family investment, and self-respect create invisible barriers that prevent PhD scholars and postgraduates from accepting work beneath their qualifications.
A female teacher from Pulwama, holding a postgraduate degree, captured the frustration: “Private schools offer Rs 3,000 a month—how do I survive on that? Our parents invested everything in our education believing it would secure our future, but we are only adding to their worries now.”
For Mudasir Ahmad, a B.Tech graduate from Budgam, the challenge lies in Kashmir’s stunted industrial growth. “There’s hardly any IT or manufacturing sector here,” he explained. “Everyone dreams of a government job because the private sector can’t sustain us. The frustration is real—it’s not just about work, it’s about dignity.”
Why Kashmir’s Job Market Fails Its Educated
Dr. Tariq Ahmad, an economist at the University of Kashmir, identifies the core problem: “Jammu and Kashmir’s employment structure has not evolved with time. Thousands of educated youth enter the job market each year, but the absorption rate remains stagnant.”
The mismatch between education and employment opportunity runs deep. Approximately 70% of Jammu and Kashmir’s population depends on agriculture and allied sectors, yet most young people graduate in arts, sciences, and business. The private sector remains too small to absorb them. The public sector offers few openings. Government recruitment processes are slow, uncertain, or riddled with delays.
While over 5,000 new industrial units have registered since 2020, actual employment generation remains limited due to delays in operationalization. Promised national and foreign investments have yet to translate into substantial jobs on the ground.
Government Response: Mission YUVA and Its Limits
The Employment Department, under Mission Youth/Mission YUVA, aims to create 4.25 lakh job opportunities through the establishment of 1.37 lakh entrepreneurship units. The focus is on promoting self-employment, startups, and skill development.
District-level Employment and Counseling Centres conduct Career Melas and Rozgar Melas to engage youth and promote innovation. “Our aim is to channelize the potential of educated youth into productive avenues, ensuring meaningful employment and promoting entrepreneurship,” government officials state.
But families on the ground remain skeptical. Surveys show that over half a million young people are interested in starting businesses, yet many lack access to low-interest loans, mentorship programs, and the infrastructure needed to succeed. Government support exists on paper; consistent delivery remains elusive.
Several major recruitment processes, including those for JKSSB, Police Sub-Inspector posts, Naib-Tehsildar posts and Education Department vacancies, have been pending for months. Each postponement deepens frustration and erodes trust in the system’s ability to deliver.
The Ripple Effects of Joblessness
Unemployment in Kashmir is not merely an economic statistic—it reshapes life trajectories and family dynamics. Young adults delay marriage, unable to meet the financial expectations that come with establishing a household. Home construction stops mid-way as savings evaporate. Entrepreneurial dreams get shelved indefinitely.
Families rely increasingly on remittances from relatives working outside the Valley, seasonal trade that provides income only a few months each year, or informal work without safety nets. The psychological toll accumulates: frustration, anxiety, diminished self-worth, and the gnawing sense that education—the ladder promised to lift families out of hardship—has become a trap.
Economists warn of long-term social and economic repercussions. A generation of educated but idle youth can fuel instability. In a region with Kashmir’s complex geopolitical history, the spillover effects of economic hopelessness carry risks beyond individual suffering.
The Shadow Epidemic—Drug Abuse Across the Valley
The Scale of the Crisis
If unemployment represents Kashmir’s most visible crisis, drug abuse is its most insidious. The problem has grown severe enough that in April 2025, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo launched a massive five-month Information, Education and Communication campaign under the Nasha Mukt Jammu Kashmir Abhiyan.
“Nasha Mukt Jammu Kashmir is not just a campaign, it is a mission to protect the youth and secure our future. We must address the roots of drug abuse while ensuring that affected individuals receive timely counselling, support and rehabilitation,” the Chief Secretary stated.
The campaign’s ambition signals the depth of official concern: 6,776 planned events, 5,923 trained resource persons deployed across departments, awareness drives engaging approximately 3.5 lakh participants by October 2025, and youth volunteers mobilized as “Drug Yodhas” to promote peer-led awareness.
The government has unveiled multiple initiatives: an official web portal at www.nashamuktjk.org, the “Inspire Podcast” series, capacity-building programs, and the recognition of 100 youth champions for their proactive contributions to the anti-drug movement.
Fear, Stigma, and Patchy Aftercare
Yet families living with the reality of addiction tell a different story. The awareness campaigns reach schools and colleges, but the infrastructure for sustained rehabilitation remains thin. Community members report fear and stigma around seeking help. Enforcement spikes—raids, arrests, public shaming—without consistent aftercare can displace the problem rather than solve it.
One parent in Budgam described the isolation: “Everyone knows the problem exists, but no one wants to admit it’s in their own family. We see posters and hear speeches, but when you need actual counseling or a bed in a treatment facility, the wait is long and the shame is heavy.”
The campaign involves multiple departments—health, education, law enforcement, rural development, social welfare—in coordinated efforts. District administrations hold pledge ceremonies, signature campaigns, and cultural programs featuring folk songs and street theater to spread anti-drug messages in local languages.
In Kupwara, expert resource persons visited 20 educational institutions to deliver lectures covering the physical, psychological, and social impacts of drug abuse, mental well-being, peer pressure management, and legal ramifications. In Ganderbal, vibrant poster-making competitions, debates, and student rallies echoed through streets as young people committed to a drug-free future.
The National Toll-Free Helpline and Ground Realities
Students across Kashmir are now familiar with the National Toll-Free Drug De-addiction Helpline: 14446. Information campaigns emphasize withdrawal symptoms—nausea, vomiting, restlessness, tremors, mood disturbances, insomnia, body pains, craving—and the medical support available to manage them.
Dr. Harjeet Rai, State Nodal Officer for De-addiction, and Dr. Majid Shafi, Consultant Psychiatrist and Nodal Officer for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, lead the clinical response. The government insists that with the right medical support, quitting becomes achievable.
But the gap between campaign rhetoric and ground delivery persists. Public treatment facilities are overcrowded. Private care is costly and beyond reach for most families. The result: many individuals cycle through brief interventions without the sustained support needed for lasting recovery.
Why the Drug Crisis Deepens Other Problems
Drug abuse does not exist in isolation—it compounds every other challenge facing Kashmir. Unemployment feeds addiction as idle youth seek escape. Addiction destroys families already stressed by economic precarity. Parents exhaust savings on treatment that often proves temporary. Siblings watch opportunities evaporate as family resources redirect toward crisis management.
Communities bear the social cost: trust erodes, vigilance increases, and the fabric that holds neighborhoods together frays. The government’s recognition of this through system-wide mobilization is important. What remains missing is the “last mile”—the consistent, humane delivery of rehabilitation services that turn awareness into recovery.
The Reservation Controversy—When Policy Sparks Protest
The Policy That Ignited Student Anger
On March 15, 2024, the Jammu and Kashmir administration approved significant changes to the reservation system: a 10% reservation for newly-included tribes, including Paharis, under the Scheduled Tribe category, the addition of 15 new castes to the Other Backward Classes category, and an increase in OBC reservation to 8%.
Previously, reservation in J&K included 8% for Scheduled Castes, 10% for Scheduled Tribes, 4% for OBCs, and 10% each for Residents of Backward Areas and Economically Weaker Sections. The new policy aimed to empower historically disadvantaged communities, including the Pahari Ethnic Group, Padari Tribes, Koli, and Gadda Brahmins.
While intended to address long-standing demands, the policy sparked widespread anger among students in the open merit category—particularly in Kashmir Valley, where many felt the changes reduced their already slim chances of securing government jobs or educational seats.
“70% of Population, 30% of Opportunities”
Unreserved open merit students launched a door-to-door poster campaign to demand justice and equality, with posters pasted on public places, trees, and even cars. Dr. Saquib Jan, a vocal supporter of the movement, posted on social media: “Unreserved open merit students have woken up—A door-to-door campaign, seeking justice and equality. It is now imperative for the government to heed the voices of this significant majority, a politically orphaned section of society that constitutes more than 70% of the population.”
One poster read: “We call for a rational and equitable revision of this reservation system now..! To alleviate the struggles and sacrifices of these countless deserving individuals whose dreams and aspirations have been shattered…!”
Students argue that the policy neglects meritocracy and jeopardizes the aspirations of countless deserving individuals. “We are not against reservation, but there needs to be a fair balance,” said one participant in the poster campaign.
Regional Disparities Fuel Suspicion
Data presented in the Legislative Assembly revealed stark regional disparities among beneficiaries since April 2023. In the Scheduled Caste category, all 67,112 beneficiaries are from the Jammu region, with none from Kashmir. In the Scheduled Tribe category, 459,493 individuals from Jammu have benefitted, compared to just 79,813 from Kashmir—a ratio of almost 6 to 1.
For many Kashmiris, these figures confirm suspicions that the policy is designed to dilute their representation in government services. Aurif Muzafar, a Kashmiri lawyer, cited data on reservation certificates to highlight the declining representation of Kashmiri Muslims in state services—a trend exacerbated by the new policy.
“Aspirants from the Kashmir region now face more stringent tests and unprecedented cutoff limits to qualify for various stages of examinations conducted by the Public Service Commission and the Services Selection Board,” he explained, comparing the situation to the Dogra era when Muslims were systematically denied access to education and employment.
Political Pressure Mounts: Ruhullah Mehdi’s Ultimatum
National Conference MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi warned he would join student protests if the government failed to engage by December 27, 2025. “I have neither forgotten nor left the students alone. I urge the government once again to talk to the students and inform them of the measures and decisions taken to resolve this issue,” Mehdi posted.
“I will walk with them and sit with them on this coming Sunday at the same place as we did last year on 23rd December to make them heard,” he stated, referring to a protest outside Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s residence in Gupkar.
Mehdi had asked the government to resolve the reservation issue before the end of the Winter session of Parliament and threatened to join the quota protests if no action was taken. However, flight disruptions prevented him from traveling to Srinagar in November.
The Government’s Response—Slow and Opaque
After last year’s protest, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah set up a cabinet sub-committee to review students’ concerns against the existing reservation policy and submit a report within six months. On October 16, 2025, Abdullah announced that the cabinet had accepted the sub-committee’s report and sent it to the Lieutenant Governor for approval.
Yet months later, students remain in the dark about the report’s contents and whether meaningful changes will follow. The lack of transparency fuels mistrust. Families already struggling with unemployment and rising costs now face uncertainty over whether their children will benefit from or lose out under the new quota system.
A writ petition challenging the reservation scheme was filed at the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court in November 2024. Decisions from both the court and the cabinet sub-committee are still awaited, prolonging anxiety for thousands of aspirants preparing for competitive exams.
How the Reservation Row Deepens Suffering
The reservation controversy multiplies existing stressors:
Education stress: Students preparing for competitive exams feel betrayed, fearing reduced opportunities despite years of hard work.
Employment anxiety: With over 3.61 lakh educated youth already unemployed, reservation changes are perceived as another barrier in an already impossible job market.
Social division: Communities perceive the policy as discriminatory, widening mistrust between regions and groups within Jammu and Kashmir.
Political tension: Leaders leveraging student anger add to instability, while government silence or slow action prolongs uncertainty and frustration.
For families, the reservation issue is not abstract policy debate—it is the difference between a child securing a government job or joining the ranks of the perpetually unemployed.
The Infrastructure Deficit—When Basic Services Fail
Education: High Fees, Irregular Calendars, Uneven Quality
Parents across Kashmir face a triple burden in education: high fees at private institutions that outpace family incomes, irregular academic calendars disrupted by closures and security concerns, and uneven infrastructure where some schools lack basic facilities while others charge exorbitant amounts.
Orders and circulars exist—government directives on fee regulation, infrastructure standards, teacher deployment—but enforcement is often delayed, inconsistent, or ignored entirely. The result is learning gaps that compound across grades, emotional strain on students uncertain about their educational future, and families forced to choose between quality education and financial survival.
The pandemic’s legacy lingers. Many schools still struggle with hybrid models, inadequate digital infrastructure, and teachers unprepared for online instruction. For students in rural areas, the digital divide is not a metaphor—it is the reality of no reliable internet, no devices, and no access to the education their urban peers receive.
Electricity: Announced Relief vs. Winter Reality
The government has announced targeted relief for vulnerable households: 200 units of free electricity for Antyodaya Anna Yojana households, subsidies for other categories, and infrastructure upgrades promised across districts.
Yet winter reliability varies dramatically. Some neighborhoods in Srinagar enjoy relatively stable supply. Others endure outages lasting hours, forcing households and small businesses into costly backup options—diesel generators, inverters, battery systems—that eat into already tight budgets.
The gap between announced policy and experienced reality creates its own stress. When the government claims progress while your shop sits dark for the third time this week, trust erodes. When relief measures help the poorest but leave middle-income families absorbing steep increases, resentment builds.
Small business owners—bakers, tailors, welders, mobile repair shops—calculate losses in terms of ruined inventory, missed orders, and customers who take their business elsewhere. For them, electricity is not a utility; it is the difference between survival and closure.
Roads: Narrow Corridors, Patchwork Maintenance, Endless Congestion
Kashmir’s road network tells a story of deferred maintenance and overwhelmed capacity. Narrow corridors designed for lighter traffic now choke with vehicles. Patchwork repairs create surfaces that damage vehicles and slow movement. Congestion turns short commutes into hours-long ordeals.
The wear-and-tear raises repair costs for private and commercial vehicles—another hidden tax on families and businesses. Auto-rickshaw drivers in Srinagar report spending more on suspension repairs than on fuel. Truckers hauling goods from Jammu face delays that spoil perishables and break contracts.
Infrastructure projects do proceed—new bypasses, road widening, bridge construction—but the pace fails to match need. Meanwhile, the daily experience of getting from home to work, school to market, hospital to pharmacy grinds down spirits already strained by economic worry.
Regulatory Burden—When Compliance Creates Anxiety
Vehicle Re-Registration: Timelines, Fees, and Queue Misery
When notices tighten timelines for vehicle documentation—fitness certificates, no-objection certificates, tax adjustments—common people pay in queues, agent fees, and missed wages. The process, designed to ensure compliance and safety, becomes a gauntlet that punishes working-class families unable to navigate bureaucratic complexity.
Clear fee charts exist in theory. Single-window digital processes are announced. Humane grace periods are promised. But at the counter, experiences vary wildly. Some officials are helpful. Others are indifferent or actively obstructive. The information gap between policy intention and counter reality leaves people vulnerable to overpayment, missed deadlines, and penalties for documentation lapses they never understood.
What would help: transparent, uniform fee schedules posted prominently; proactive SMS reminders with clear instructions; single-window portals that actually work; and grace periods that reflect the reality of how long it takes ordinary people to assemble paperwork while managing work and family obligations.
The Invisible Cost of Compliance
The financial cost of compliance—fees, agent charges, transportation to offices—is only part of the burden. The invisible cost includes days of wages lost standing in queues, the mental energy expended worrying about deadlines and penalties, and the erosion of trust that occurs when the state feels more like an obstacle than a service provider.
For families already managing unemployment, drug crises, education stress, and infrastructure failures, regulatory complexity becomes one more weight on the scale—small in isolation, crushing in accumulation.
Cost of Living—When Groceries Become a Gamble
Rising Costs Squeeze Monthly Budgets
Groceries, fuel, and transport costs have risen steadily across Kashmir. Welfare measures—additional ration for Antyodaya Anna Yojana households, enhanced pensions, subsidies—help the poorest, but middle-income families absorb steep increases with no cushion.
A kilogram of rice that cost Rs 40 two years ago now costs Rs 60. Cooking oil prices fluctuate wildly. Vegetables that were affordable staples become occasional purchases. Fuel price changes ripple through the economy, raising transportation costs that vendors pass on to consumers.
For families with one income, rising costs mean hard choices: less protein in meals, delayed medical check-ups, children pulled from coaching classes that cost extra, weddings postponed indefinitely, and social obligations—gifts, celebrations, support for extended family—trimmed or abandoned entirely.
Adulteration: The Fear Behind Every Purchase
Reports of contaminated staples—rice mixed with plastic, milk diluted with water, turmeric adulterated with lead chromate, spurious medicines—erode the most basic trust: that the food you buy and the medicine you give your children are safe.
Without visible enforcement, regular market inspections, batch-level test disclosures for food and medicines, and fast-track grievance redress, families live with low-grade fear. Every purchase becomes a gamble. The cumulative psychological cost—the constant vigilance, the doubt, the occasional poisoning or illness—adds to the stress of simply surviving.
Consumer protection laws exist. Testing facilities operate. But the gap between capacity and need, and between announced action and visible results, leaves people unprotected in practice.
Healthcare: Overcrowded Public, Unaffordable Private
Public health facilities in Kashmir are overcrowded. Walk into any district hospital and you will find waiting rooms packed with patients, doctors seeing dozens of cases per hour, and essential supplies running low. For routine care, the system creaks along. For anything complex, chronic, or requiring specialized attention, families face delays that turn treatable conditions into serious illness.
Private healthcare offers better infrastructure and shorter waits—at costs most families cannot afford. A single hospitalization can wipe out years of savings. Chronic conditions requiring regular medication or monitoring become financial traps. Mental health services, already stigmatized and underfunded, are nearly impossible to access affordably.
The result is delayed treatment, worsening health outcomes, and emotional exhaustion—especially for mental health needs that multiply under economic and social stress.
What Would Actually Reduce Suffering
The problems facing Kashmir are systemic, layered, and resistant to simple solutions. But specific interventions could ease pressure and rebuild trust:
1. Targeted Economic Relief
Index cash transfers and utility support to inflation for vulnerable groups. Publish clear eligibility criteria and distribution timelines. Make relief predictable rather than sporadic. Extend support to lower-middle-income families caught between poverty programs and full self-sufficiency.
2. Integrated Drug Response
Pair enforcement with accessible rehabilitation. Establish more treatment beds and counseling centers. Offer school and community counseling that reduces stigma. Create job pathways for individuals in recovery—employment as aftercare. Measure success with monthly outcome dashboards tracking not just awareness events but actual recovery rates and sustained sobriety.
3. Service Reliability Through Accountability
Commit to district-level Service Level Agreements for electricity supply, road repairs, and school calendars. Publish compliance metrics weekly in accessible formats. Create feedback mechanisms that allow citizens to report failures without fear of retaliation. Make reliability a performance indicator for officials.
4. Simplified Compliance
Build single-window portals for vehicle documentation with transparent, uniform fee schedules. Send proactive SMS reminders with clear instructions and reasonable deadlines. Train counter staff in customer service. Penalize officials who obstruct or seek bribes.
5. Consumer Protection That Works
Conduct visible market inspections with public disclosure of results. Publish batch-level test findings for food and medicines online. Establish fast-track grievance redress with real penalties for violations. Build trust through transparency and consistent enforcement.
6. Transparent Dialogue on Reservation
The government must explain reservation policy changes clearly, in language ordinary people understand, with data on anticipated impacts. Engage directly with students through town halls, not just announcements. Establish an independent commission to assess fairness and impact of quotas in Jammu and Kashmir. Implement relief measures—scholarships, skill programs, targeted job schemes—that offset stress for aspirants caught in policy transitions.
7. Accelerate Employment Generation
Beyond Mission YUVA’s entrepreneurship focus, create direct government jobs in sectors where need is visible—healthcare, education, infrastructure maintenance, environmental conservation. Partner with private sector through incentives that mandate local hiring. Establish industrial parks with infrastructure and tax breaks for companies that employ Kashmiri youth. Measure success not by units registered but by actual jobs created and sustained.
Conclusion: Survival, Not Stability
People in Kashmir are not breaking under one crisis—they are bending under many at once. The unemployment numbers, the scope of the Nasha Mukt campaign, the student protests, the welfare announcements—all show that the system recognizes the strain. Government officials work long hours. Schemes get designed. Announcements are made.
What remains missing is consistent, humane delivery: services that work, costs that do not spiral, rules that come with clarity rather than fear, and policies communicated in ways that build trust rather than deepen division.
Until then, survival—not stability—will define daily life in Kashmir. And for a region whose beauty masks profound hardship, whose youth possess ambition without outlet, and whose families bend but refuse to break, survival is not enough. What Kashmir needs is not more awareness campaigns or policy announcements, but the unglamorous, difficult work of making systems function reliably, fairly, and with the dignity that every citizen deserves.
The question is not whether the government recognizes the problems—the Nasha Mukt campaign, Mission YUVA, welfare schemes, and cabinet sub-committees prove they do. The question is whether recognition will translate into delivery before bending becomes breaking.
