Image for representational purposes.
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The Karnataka 2025-26 budget session concluded with discussions spanning various topics and dominating newsrooms last month. However, one crucial agenda — youth welfare — was missing. Even at a time when local reports highlighted over 35 suicides in a single small town in the state, there was little focus on addressing youth needs. Apart from the continuation of the Yuvanidhi scheme, which provides only interim relief for the pressing issue of youth livelihoods, Karnataka has failed to prioritise youth concerns.
Before coming to power, the Congress had committed in its manifesto to establishing a Youth Commission — an initiative that could have provided far-reaching support for youth. Setting up the commission is not a resource-intensive task. It only required governmental willpower and a commitment to fulfilling electoral promises. However, this promise was not acted upon, and no questions were raised about it.
Some may argue that provisions for education and sports also address youth needs. However, this reflects a limited understanding of young people and their requirements. While education and livelihoods are central to youthhood, they are not the only aspects.
Youthhood should be understood as a vulnerable phase of transition from childhood to adulthood. During this period, choices related to education, work, relationships, health, political affiliations and marriage come to the forefront. Young people navigate these choices with limited autonomy within traditional social setups while being expected to shoulder responsibilities for their families and their well-being. In this context, it should be recalled that in Karnataka, following the release of the 2012 Youth Policy document, the Youth Affairs Department was renamed the ‘Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports’. This renaming has meant little, except for the introduction of the Yuva Spandana programme — the sole initiative that recognises the psycho-social and emotional needs of youth.
The budget for this youth department has also been gradually declining each year. The allocated funds are generally directed towards constructing sports infrastructure. The rhetoric of youth being the “future of the nation” is not accompanied by efforts to address their needs today.
This issue extends beyond the state of Karnataka. At the national level, the National Youth Policy was scheduled for release in 2020 but was delayed due to Covid. The draft policy was released in April 2022, with several civil society organisations submitting their recommendations. As of 2025, this process has yet to move forward.
Why should governments pay more attention to youth issues? The simple answer is that young people face enormous psychological and social pressures, with few healthy coping mechanisms. Even estimating their vulnerabilities is hard due to the lack of authentic data. The ‘Youth in India 2021’ report published by the Government of India is one of the few that shows how young people are vulnerable on multiple fronts. The exposure draft of the National Youth Policy 2010 included a proposal for a Youth Development Index. But this did not feature in the final drafts — neither in 2014 nor in the 2021 youth policy drafts.
Globally, there is growing recognition of youth as a vulnerable group, particularly in the face of increasing economic disparities and climate change. The United Nations has declared youth as a key demographic under its ‘Leave No One Behind’ pledge. The UN Human Rights Commission has set up a committee to address the human rights of young people. Given this larger context, it is high time our national policymakers started paying attention to youth needs rather than mere lip-service declarations about catering to the “nation’s future”. Systemic changes are necessary, especially to support the most disadvantaged among them.
The Karnataka Youth Policy draft of 2022 presented some possibilities. Originally formulated in 2012, the policy was revised and approved during the legislative session in Belagavi in 2022, albeit in a diluted form. The initial proposal was to extend the youth empowerment department to the grassroots level, including by appointing youth development officers in every gram panchayat. It also suggested having a separate directorate for youth empowerment and sports. None of these recommendations were adopted. Even the diluted approved policy was not implemented.
For several years, youth and organisations dedicated to youth empowerment have been demanding the establishment of a youth commission — a demand that found a place in the Congress manifesto. The commission would focus on addressing the needs and rights of young people, ensure that the state formulates policies and programmes to realise youth rights, and closely monitor the state’s youth empowerment initiatives.
Given Karnataka’s pioneering initiative in conducting yuva grama sabhas to strengthen the democratic participation of youth at the grassroots, it certainly has the potential to do more and take the lead in ensuring the well-being of its youth.
(The writers are co-executive directors of Samvada, an organisation that works for youth empowerment)