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Civil society is probing all avenues of employment for the youth because unemployed youth force has negative potential for disruption. In our State, the Government has been traditionally the largest employer. But it has reached the saturation point. Therefore, the Government has to explore other avenues for providing employment to the youth. This matter is not the concern of the State only, it is a national problem.
For quite some time, policy planners have been concentrating on self employment. In that context the Government framed full-fledged policy of how self-employment could be promoted. The main question in self employment is of seed money with which an unemployed youth would start his small scale business or enterprise. Therefore, advancing loan to the youth on minimum interest with further facility of returning the bank loans in small installments were the parts of the theory of self-employment. However in the world of tough competition, it is not possible for small entrepreneurs to survive unless there is definite support in more than one way.
We learn from past experience that the more effective means of eradicating unemployment among the youth including educated youth is that of equipping them with a skill. Actually Prime Minister Modi realized from the very beginning of his Government that if a revolution was to be brought about in the economy of the country and if the vast youth of India were to be engaged in productive work, then we have to plan in a way so that the youth become independent bread earners and do not depend on either the Government or various agencies of the Government. There is no end to the skills that are needed to make a society run its normal course of life.
This is precisely what the State Chief Minister thinks and acts. In a recent function in Srinagar, attended by top echelons of the administration and a number of her cabinet colleagues the Chief Minister gave expression to her various ideas of the utility and scope of imparting skills among the youth. We are very appreciative of the idea of the CM that various departments and agencies running courses for different skills independently should be brought under one umbrella so as to make it easy and effective for the youth to make a selection of the skill he or she would be interested in and could pursue in given circumstances. Nomination of Financial Commissioner as the Nodal Head of the Skill Development initiatives is reflective of the seriousness with which the CM takes the subject of imparting skills to the youth. This nomination is expected to coordinate the activities of different departments in a much better way. As Head of the State Skill Mission, she has recommended creation of a State Skill Development Society to monitor the progress of skill development enterprise by the State agency.
It is true that the infrastructure needed for imparting skills of various kinds to the youth of the State is not fully available in the State. One suggestion from the Chief Minister is that all technical institutes in the State should be adapted to multi-skill institutes and diversification of training in these institutes is of primary need. Evening classes for imparting skills could be opened in these institutes so as not to disturb their normal work. However, it is to be seen whether it would be technically sound if the intake in our ITIs and Polytechnics is doubled. There was also talk about NASSCOM mapping wherein each district in the State has been evaluated in terms of a particular skill. We think that making training in skills a subject for district administration would be highly useful to make the schema a success. For the rural youth of the State it will be easier to equip them with training, and know the avenues of employment. Choosing right type of vocational training is also a related matter. The aptitude of the youth and availability of the skill are the essentials for making a right choice of the vocation.
The CM is right in suggesting that tourism, an important source of State’s economy, also needs skilled functionaries. There are so many training institutes in the country for imparting training in hoteliering and related vocations. We could suggest that our State should have a Tourism Training Institute on the patterns of such institutes in Switzerland, which would be a combination of a number of services like Tourism, Hotel Management, Sports and Hiking, Archaeology and Museums. A tourist guide with degree or certification from the suggested institute would be better equipped to improve his economic condition and job opportunity. In short our youth have to be innovative and the government agency has to be supportive if we want eradication of unemployment among them.
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