Skilling of youth key to deal with unemployment: Dr Mehta

Asks youth to come forward to seek skills for self employment to earn their livelihood

JAMMU, December 27: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta Tuesday remarked that the skilling of youth in relevant trades is the key to tide over the problem of unemployment in the UT.

Dr Mehta was speaking in a meeting to discuss the ways and means of skilling and capacity building of youth with the stakeholders.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Skill Development Department (SDD); Commissioner Secretary, RDD; Director IIM, Jammu; Deputy Commissioners; MD, NRLM; Director, SDD; representatives from Banks and other concerned officers.

On the occasion, Dr Mehta impressed upon the officers to map skill gap in districts as per employment potential   and expected areas of investment. He asked them to impart skills to every youth as par aptitude and willingness. He called for imparting skills that are relevant in the market and help the person in gainful employment.

The Chief Secretary issued instructions  for making a robust mechanism to skill those youth identified during the recently held outreach programmes of ‘Back to Village’ and ‘My Town My Pride’. He stressed on providing right skills to these youth identified from Panchayats and Local Bodies so that they happen to be inspiration for others. He reiterated that investments worth around Rs 60000 crores are coming to UT in next few years under Single Window System and it would open doors for thousands of youth to gain employment.

Dr Mehta further maintained that the LG administration is has evolved a multi-pronged strategy to provide employment to the youth of J&K. He stressed on the need to skill every  youngster in the  UT so that gainful  Self Employment avenues becomes a reality and youth become  successful entrepreneurs with guidance and support from  government. He also elucidated that it is also the endeavour of government to upskill youth in high value skills so that they are able to seize employment in any part of the globe.

He urged the educated youth to come forward for gaining rightful skills in the best of the skill institutes for earning their livelihood in a respectable manner. He observed that J&K has dozens of skill institutes including those of National repute like IIT, IIM, NIT and more than half a dozen Universities. He told them to utilize this opportunity for making themselves worthy enough to earn jobs of their choice. He made out that for the people with right skill sets, there is no dearth of  opportunities and their earnings.

The Principal Secretary, SDD, Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon gave a detailed presentation on the strategy formulated by his department for skilling of youth. He threw light on various aspects and avenues where skilling of youth could fetch them better returns. He also set out the investment trends to be witnessed in next 5 years and the scope of employment in different sectors in both the divisions of J&K.

Dr Samoon also gave insights about the trainings to be started by the department to upskill the youth identified in the recently concluded Back to Village-4 programme. He asked the Deputy Commissioners to facilitate these youth to get skilled in different trades in the trainings to be started in the first week of January next year.

It was divulged that hundreds of MoUs have been signed till date for establishing industrial units in the UT.  It was given out that more than 3.37 lakh skilled and semi-skilled workers are estimated to be required in J&K in the sectors of Trade, Tourism & Hospitality, Education & Health, Real estate/Infrastructure, Manufacturing, Food processing, Construction and ITes in the future.

It was further revealed that more than 85000 students are targeted by different government departments and skill imparting agencies in the first phase. It includes training of around 11696 students by SDD, 11371 by RDD, 10840 by IT Department, 6834 by Mission Youth, 5544 by Handloom, 5539 by Social Welfare, 4811 by Higher Education, 4284 by Health, 4226 by Tourism, 4073 by KVIB, 3012 by EDI, 2920 by Agriculture, 2177 by Home, 2115 by Transport, 2039 by Handicrafts, 1846 by Tribal Affairs, 1040 by FCS&CA, 869 by SKUAST, and 584 by I&C Departments.

It was said that the SDD will act as the central agency for maintaining MIS, act as link between departments and agencies like NIESEBUD, and SSCs for syllabus, study material, identification of certified trainers, identification of infrastructure, registration of students on the portal, assessment, certification and post certification assistance. Further SDD will allocate a pool of experts within the Department who will assist the government to achieve the vision & mission of imparting quality training to the youth of Jammu and Kashmir.