National Conference (NC) Provincial President, Jammu, Devender Singh Rana Sunday sought absorption of locals in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) besides engagement of the local workforce in central projects under execution in J&K.
“Institutions like IIT, IIM, AIIMS and banks have immense potential to accommodate local unemployed youth and, therefore earnest steps are needed to be taken to ensure optimum absorption of 100 percent local youth in these establishments for skilled and semi-skilled categories and at least 50 percent in other categories,” a statement of NC quoted Rana while addressing roadside meetings with the residents of Panjgrian, Kattalbatal, Ban and Khalati in Nadore Panchayats as saying.
Rana said that unemployment had taken alarming proportions with educated unemployed besides skilled and unskilled workforce nurturing the feeling of let down in recent years.
“The situation has further worsened due to retrenchment in the private sector in the wake of COVID19 pandemic, adding to the joblessness,” he said in the statement. “There has to be some mechanism in tackling this scenario, more so because of the limited avenues of jobs due to lack of industries and corporate sectors.”
The NC leader said the government and public sector were major sources of employment and therefore some rationale had to be adopted.
He said that there was a need for evolving a mechanism to reserve a substantial percentage of jobs for permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir in central government departments, public sector undertaking and defence establishments of civilian nature.
“Special efforts are needed to be made in tackling the burgeoning unemployment problem here. The Centre should devise a mechanism, making it mandatory for all the central establishments to have adequate local representation in various organisations in respect of class four jobs and other skilled and unskilled slots,” Rana said in the statement.
He said the other categories of jobs in such organisations could be filled through the normal recruitment process with preference to the locals.