By IANS,
New Delhi : The central government will spend Rs.235 crore annually on a training-cum-placement programme to prepare one lakh youths from Jammu and Kashmir for employment in the private sector, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said Monday.
The programme, called ‘Himayat’, was launched by him in Srinagar Sunday and the first batch of 800 students will pass out of the three-month certificate programme in December this year.
The programme is part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s vision for creating employment for youths of Jammu and Kashmir, and 1,500 youngsters will complete the training in its first year, Ramesh told reporters here.
His ministry will fund the project through its National Rural Livelihood Mission for which private sector institutions such as IL&FS and Don Bosco Technical Institute have been chosen to impart the training to the youths, who would be selected for the programme on the basis of applications.
The institutions were selected through a bidding process and more such institutions would soon be included in the project, Ramesh said.
After their three-month training, the first batch of 800 youths would be found employment with Cafe Coffee Day, Wal-Mart, V-Mart and Bajaj Allianz insurance.
“Though most girls want employment within Jammu and Kashmir, many boys are ready to work outside the state also. Some of the jobs on offer are in cities and towns like Chandigarh, Shimla and Jaipur,” Ramesh said.
The ministry will spend about Rs.23,000 per youth in the programme.
Once the trained youths complete their course and take up employment, the ministry will keep track of their progress over the next three years and, if needed, provide them further training.
The youths, either Class 10, 12 or college drop-outs, are at present conversant in English and will get minimum computer literacy, apart from job-oriented training.
Ramesh also said that the home ministry would soon come up with its own employment-oriented training programme for skilled youths.
The home ministry programme will focus largely on urban youths and will be exclusively for Jammu and Kashmir, though a similar programme was being worked out for Maoist-affected areas too.