J&K Government failed to implement skill development initiatives effectively, students and training partners main sufferers

Srinagar :  Against a target of providing skills to 10000 youth, the State government has not trained even a single unemployed youth under National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) during the year 2014-15.

According to scheme 1 lakh students were to be trained under centrally sponsored Skill Development and Employment Programme throughout the country. State Govt also got the share to train 10000 candidates for the year 2014-15 through department of Housing and Urban Development but it has miserably failed to train any youth. Due to the failure and the incompetence of the state government, Govt of India reduced the target to 1500 only. Various training institutes were empanelled for J&K to train 1500 candidates.

As per the guidelines, a student was to be paid Rs 35 per hour but the State Govt violated these guidelines and started to pay Rs1000 per month making it difficult for the institutes to run the programs. The job order was later given to these training institutes to train students in their respective trades.

New Expression of Interest (EOI) for empanelment of training institutes was implemented to which the court issued the stay order. Due to the government’s failure to implement the scheme, thousands of the youth were deprived of the skill development programme of the central government.

J&K IT Association President Afroz Ahmad told Rising Kashmir they received the quota of students in the month of March and mobilized the students for the different trades who are undergoing the training right.

“Unfortunately department called another Expression Of Interest dated 06/04/2017 and terminated the previous one without any reason and notice.”

Afroz said this is routine in the state that the departments fail to implement the government of India schemes successfully. The empanelment of training institutes took three years after issuing the first Expression of Interest in Feb 2014. State government is non serious to tackle the unemployment issues here by providing skills to unemployed youth. He also alleged that various Skill Development Programmes have been allotted to outside NGOs that don’t have proper infrastructure to train youth.

Minister of Housing and Urban Development Asiya Naqash however refuted such allegations and she will provide exact figures and data. When asked about the figures, she dropped the call.

Note: News shared for public awareness with reference from the information provided at online news portals.