‘Udaan scheme to be revisited to make it more productive; Traditional crafts should get focus’
NEW DELHI: Chief Minister, Ms Mehbooba Mufti today called for joint effort by the government, the public sector enterprises and the corporate houses to make skill development initiative gainful for the unemployed youth.
“We have to launch a coordinated effort to empower large sections of conventionally-educated youth with requisite skills to enhance their employability,” the Chief Minister said while addressing the maiden meeting of the Governing Council of National Skill Development Mission (NSDM) convened here last evening chairmanship of Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi.
Ms Mehbooba said her Government has already nominated a Nodal Head for the Skill Development initiatives so that activities of different departments are coordinated in a much better way. “Different departments must concentrate in their areas of expertise so that youth are provided with base-level and up-graded skills, which will enable them to get productive employment in sync with the market requirement,” she said adding; “Our talented youth need opportunities. Converging skilling efforts as well as financial resources available with us will provide a clear line of action to enable the state to make further progress on this front.”
The Chief Minister said with the kind of infrastructure available in the State, it will be very difficult to achieve the targets on skill development, unless the intake capacity of ITIs and Polytechnics is increased with value-addition of these institutions. “We have already roped in some corporate houses for value-addition of ITIs and Polytechnics in the State under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative,” she said and added that the State Government has asked the Government of India to also revisit the Udaan scheme and instead of sending our youth outside the State for training, the corporate houses, presently operating in J&K, must train them here and provide them employment within the State.
She said the PSUs like NHPC should earmark a percentage of profits on ‘skill development’ initiatives in the areas where these operate.
She also called for having a skill development component in the budgets of major union ministries, like Power, Defense and Railways to be utilized for economically weaker and geographically disadvantageous states like J&K and the Northeast.
She said in order to ensure area-specific development, the State Government has done regional mapping wherein each district in the state has been evaluated in terms of a particular skill. “We have worked out a mechanism with private firms wherein our skilled youth will be trained by firms like HAL, BHEL, Bharti Infratel, NTPC and ONGC for corporate jobs,” she added.
The Chief Minister also suggested transforming ITIs into multi-skill institutes as well as roping in existing school and college infrastructure in the evenings to train more youth. “Our aim is not only to expand facilities for skill training, but also address the important task of raising their quality,” she added.
Describing skill as an integral part of employment, Ms Mehbooba said it is vital that it should be complemented by commensurate creation of jobs in different economic sectors like tourism, agriculture, horticulture, hospitality etc. She emphasized upon tapping the huge potential in creation of job opportunities in the floriculture and tourism sectors, particularly related to activities like landscaping, gardening and culinary.
“In J&K agriculture, horticulture, tourism, handicrafts and hospitality are the thrust areas of economic activity and these should also constitute the priority areas for skill development,” she said and added that similarly heritage conservation and promotion also offers great potential of employability for the skilled youth. “For J&K this remains a key area where we focus on fostering entrepreneurial culture and improving ease of doing business while at the same time promoting traditional crafts like famed Kashmiri crafts and Basholi paintings,” she said.
“All the three regions of the state including Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh have distinct heritage promotion potential and we have to train our local youth in the related skills to help them earn respectable livelihood,” she said.
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