Jammu, Jan 7: Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah today launched the website www.skewpy.org of Sher-e-Kashmir Employment and Welfare Programme for Youth (SKEWPY) here.
 Among other necessary data the website will provide complete information about different schemes under SKEWPY, modus operandi of applying for registration, training and launch of self-employment ventures besides details of the voluntary service allowance scheme.
 The Chief Minister later reviewed the progress under SKEWPY at a high level meeting and gave directions for mass awareness about this ambitious employment generation scheme.
 “You should utilize all means of publicity to educate and inform the youth about the provisions of SKEWPY to help them in many ways to get full information about this programme,” he told the officers concerned and directed for printing of booklets in this connection. “Such booklets in Urdu, Hindi and English languages should be kept available in the Khidmat Centres, Universities, Colleges and other relevant places for educated persons to study”, he added.
 Stressing on holistic implementation of various aspects of SKEWPY in letter and spirit, the Chief Minister said that unemployment problem could be addressed effectively under this programme. He asked the concerned to make the process of selection, registration and sanctioning of seed money more easy and smooth to encourage the youth to take maximum benefits of the programme.
 The Secretary, Labour and Employment, G.A. Peer informed the meeting that 16,302 candidates have been registered under Voluntary Services Scheme (VSA) in the State and their accounts have been opened ending December 2010 while the number of such registrations stood at 4022 in June 2010.
 There are about 3750 applications in the pipe line which are likely to be cleared by the end of January 2011.
 Peer said that an amount of Rs. 4.20 crore has been released by the Finance Department to clear the payment of allowances under VSA. He said the allowances have been disbursed to the volunteers upto November 2010.
 It was stated that administrative approvals has been given for construction of District Employment and Counseling Centres (DECCs) and construction of  three centers at Ganderbal, Samba and Kupwara is on final stages.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 7 Jan 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 7 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 8 Jan 2011 00:00:00 IST