Lack of budgetary allocation, withholding of allocated funds and faulty execution of centrally sponsored schemes has severely affected the growth of the ambitious Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI)—pushing it to the reverse growth graph.
“Adverse conditions created by the people at the helm have pushed JKEDI to the brink. We are at the verge of shutting our doors on the start-ups and upcoming entrepreneurs,” a senior official at JKEDI headquarters at Pampore, requesting anonymity, told Greater Kashmir.
“JKEDI is witnessing a reverse growth story. An institute which was conceptualized with so much fanfare and vision is now struggling to stay afloat,” the official says, adding “we don’t have anything substantial to offer to the unemployed youth in Jammu and Kashmir as there is a very miniscule budget that is received from the State component.”
There is not enough money to pay the salaries of the employees not to talk of doing anything substantial for the engagement of unemployed youth.
A few other officials argued that the 95 per cent of the budget that comes from the Centre remains halted because the Union territory government doesn’t release their 5 per cent share of the allocated budget.
“We never faced such issues with regard to the budgets allocation earlier. We would get ample funds from the Centre and State would also boost our activities. However now 5% funding from the UT component isn’t received on regular intervals which is hampering our operations largely,” a senior official says.
The institute, which started its regular activities from February 2004 and had positioned itself as a learning centre par excellence with state-of-the-art regional centres across Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh is now struggling to keep on the track for the want of funds from the Centre and the Union Territory governments.
“No funds are being released. Flagship schemes like the Seed Capital fund scheme and big units remain massively hit because of this lacuna,” he says¸ adding that besides this Jammu and Kashmir Department of Labour and Employment hasn’t released any funds from the last over two years.
“In the absence of funds, our major operations can’t take off which resulted in schemes like the Youth Start-up Loan scheme, a direct lending scheme from EDI is largely hit. We have been writing to the Employment Department in this regard but nothing has been done,” he says.
The official says that due to the “faulty administrative policies”, the unemployed youth of Jammu and Kashmir are suffering on the large scale.
“Whenever we get a chunk of unemployed youth asking us about any new schemes—we have to unfortunately return them with harsh realities that we don’t have anything to offer at the moment,” he says.
A senior official at JKEDI says that the aim of the Institute was to effectively enable entrepreneurship development and address the growing unemployment crisis. However, due to the lack of funding to the major schemes, the Institute remains in deep crisis.
‘Youth amid chaos’
Amidst such perceptions, several members of the Jammu and Kashmir’s industrial communities say that the defunct institutions including the ambitious Jammu & Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute, have pushed jobless youth to further state of chaos and conflict. They argue that the faulty administrative policies have pushed back the enterprising culture in the Kashmir region.
Notably, the Jammu & Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI) was established in March 1997 with the government claiming that the Institute would effectively work to enable entrepreneurship development in the erstwhile state. The institute started its regular activities from February 2004 and later positioned itself as a learning centre par excellence with state-of-the-art regional centres across Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
Besides, JKEDI Community Organisers were (COs) deputed to all the district headquarters for enabling entrepreneurship and promoting development at the grassroots.
“We have been recovering loans from the last two years and not offering any substantial entrepreneurship packages to the jobless youth,” a Community Organiser of JKEDI says.
“Sometimes we get embarrassed when youth who come to us with high hopes leave in despair,” the official says, adding “there is now no visible and growing awareness among jobless youth about our schemes which remain defunct. Earlier, these programmes generated immense goodwill and substantive cooperation among the stakeholders.”
The officials maintained that for holistic and sustainable entrepreneurship development across the landlocked region, there was always a need for JKEDI to step out of its main campuses into the districts, and even deeper into the community.
“How can we operate without even proper funding and proper administrative approvals,” the officials say. “JKEDI professionals earlier worked at the grassroots to create enterprise awareness and readiness among the youth of Jammu and Kashmir but now we have been only engrossed in the government’s nod for carrying out the official works and at our own level we are busy in recovery of loans.”
‘Lagging Behind’
As compared to other Entrepreneurship Institutes across India, JKEDI has also been questioned for the lack of academic, research and boosting entrepreneurship interventions among the youth. While a few other Institutes including EDI Ahmedabad, run ambitious international programs and bring laurels for their centres.
‘Falling of Ranks’
Importantly, the JKEDI has also not surfaced for Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA). ARIIA is a path-breaking policy initiative of the Ministry of Education (MoE), implemented through AICTE and MoE’s Innovation Cell to systematically rank all major higher educational institutions and universities in India on indicators related to promotion and support of “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development” amongst students and faculties.
“JKEDI five years back was proposed to be a centre of excellence under ARIIA and we all were upbeat for the award. However; we ended up getting derailed, which is not only sad but a disturbing for the overall entrepreneurship culture of Jammu and Kashmir.”
“JKEDI is also not addressing the start-up ecosystem of the region and we are facing many issues,” Abid Rasheed, a tech geek, says. “They (JKEDI) have forgotten their parameters of bringing entrepreneurship revolution in Jammu and Kashmir.”
Another entrepreneur, Muhammad Ali, says that JKEDI has disappointed the upcoming start-ups as there are no more activities to promote and support innovation & start-up in their campus.
“Pre-incubation and incubation infrastructures & facilities are no longer offered to us as there is no zeal in their work,” he alleged. He says that any successful innovation and start-ups emerged with the support and handholding. However; the ecosystem enablers are missing in the region, affecting majorly the culture of innovation & start-ups.
Officials at the Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI) maintain that the aim of the Institute was to effectively enable entrepreneurship development and address the growing unemployment crisis. However; the Institute remains in deep crisis as lack of funds has created “administrative discomfort” for the successful launch of the schemes which could have benefitted the youth across Jammu and Kashmir.
“There isn’t anything substantial to offer now to the unemployed youth in Jammu and Kashmir because in most of our schemes the funding remains yet to be received from the government of India,” a senior official, posted at JKEDI, says.
“Whatever programmes we have been running earlier, we created our niche through these programmes and wanted others to follow that path and importantly we haven’t faced any issues on funding from the Centre, however the 5% funding from the state component isn’t received on regular intervals which is creating mess of the whole funding pattern,” he says.
JKEDI, which started its regular activities from February 2004 and had positioned itself as a learning centre par excellence with state-of-the-art regional centres across Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh is now struggling to keep afloat for the want of funds from the Centre and the Union Territory governments.
“The flagship scheme and seed capital fund schemes and big units remain massively hit because of this lacuna,” he says¸ adding that besides this Jammu and Kashmir Department of Labour and Employment Department hasn’t released any funds from the last over two years.
“The major schemes including Youth Start-up Loan scheme, Direct finance scheme from EDI remain largely hit as the major operations can’t take off due to the lack of proper budget allocation.”
‘Administrative Inertia’
The JKEDI, according to officials, have been writing formal communications to the government-run Employment Department, for addressing the financial issues as the funds which government release for the Institute are routed through the Employment department. The officials blamed the “faulty administrative policies” for pushing the unemployed youth of Jammu and Kashmir to further suffering.
‘Mis-Link of Policies’
The officials argue that there was a lot of “mis-link” of policy makers on part of linking several unique mandated departments, for instance— Youth Mission, Employment Department, Labour Department, Skill Mission or any other self-help group-oriented initiatives. The officials argue that a baseline survey of the unemployment and how entrepreneurship could be benefitted, should have been carried out by now, so that a mapping could have been done.
“There is a mis-link of a lot of government’s initiatives and they need to be linked on priority. The loopholes need to be plugged in,” the officials say. “Whenever we get a chunk of unemployed youth asking us about any new schemes—we have to unfortunately return them with harsh realities that we don’t have anything to offer at the moment,” they say.
‘Giving rise to Unemployment’
Lack of jobs landscape and the rising unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir regions have created what psychologists refer to as “traumatic mind states among younger generations.”
According to the medical experts and psychologists, the alarmingly rising situations are pushing youth to the wall and they are forced to take some extreme steps in a few unique situations. They say that it is generally caused when a life event occurs that is so fundamentally threatening to the building blocks of the identities that they actually create a temporary state of trauma to an individual’s psyche.
“We must address the issues of youth. Unemployment is a biggest concern that we all must address. Unemployment continues to be a disease that is harming the psyche of our youth,” says noted clinical psychologist and director, Drug Deaddiction Centre, Srinagar, Dr Muzaffar Khan.
“We have to devise a proper strategy to deal with the situations and link youth to the greater job market,” he says.
In Jammu and Kashmir, several opposition parties have accused the administration of being “indifferent” to the plight of the youths of the Union Territory, who were turning to drugs out of joblessness and ensuing frustration.
‘What Officials Say’
Managing Director, Jammu & Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute, Anil Koul, chose not to comment on the issue, saying that “enough was done to streamline things on the ground.” Commissioner Secretary, Industries and Commerce, RK Thakur, couldn’t be reached for his comments.