In Jammu and Kashmir government job is the first priority for a majority of educated youth but unfortunately, these jobs are scarce. The private sector lacks big investments, though now the government has opened doors for investors it is yet to show any physical progress on the ground. It leaves youngsters often in a quandary about what to do, how to earn their livelihood, plan their future etc.
As per the CMIE, J&K’s unemployment rate is 15 percent which is higher than the All India average. This leaves a question that how can we tame the growing unemployment.
The answer lies in self-employment and rightly so, the J&K government has introduced a slew of initiatives to woo youngsters towards self-employment where they will be their own bosses and also contribute towards job creation in the UT of J&K.
Jammu and Kashmir is bestowed with a predominantly young population with about 69 percent of the population being below the age of 35 years.
In order to provide a platform for holistic implementation of all youth engagement and outreach initiatives, and to bring the interests and empowerment of youth to the centre of policymaking, the government of Jammu and Kashmir UT has rolled out a pioneering initiative – Mission Youth.
Mumkin – Livelihood Generation Scheme
Under the Mumkin scheme, unemployed youth are facilitated to procure small commercial vehicles, on a subsidized basis, to establish a sustainable livelihood line in the transport sector.
To make the scheme implementation, completely transparent and fast, a module has been developed on the JK-e-Services portal for operating the scheme digitally.
As a special incentive under this scheme, Mission Youth is contributing Rs 0.80 lakh or 10 percent of the On-Road Price of Vehicle (whichever is Minimum) per beneficiary and an equivalent amount is also contributed by the vehicle manufacturers Mission Youth has tied up with reputed vehicle manufacturers as scheme partners for providing the best in class options of vehicles to the youth. Pertinently, discretion to choose the type of vehicle is left to the youth under scheme guidelines.
Spurring Entrepreneurship Initiative
This scheme is centred on the theme Youth Enterprise with Innovation (YouWiN)/ Champion for Innovation program for encouraging young entrepreneurs’ especially young women towards innovations in various enterprises.
The broad aim of the Scheme is to provide financial assistance to the youth of Union Territory of J&K for establishing their business units. It has the stated objective of encouraging innovation and job creation through the creation of new businesses and expansion of existing businesses.
This scheme seeks to foster high growth entrepreneurship through business plan competitions. The core principle is to let youth decide on the nature and manner of their business rather than giving an enumerative list of businesses and asking them to choose from a confined sphere of prescribed activities.
Tejaswani – The Radiant
TEJASWINI scheme is aimed to promote entrepreneurship among young women. The scheme envisages giving financial assistance upto Rs 5 lakhs to young women for setting up gainful self-employment ventures, suited to their skills, training, aptitude and local conditions.
The financial assistance is given to women between the age of 18 to 35 years having qualifications of 10th standard or above.
SAHYTA Programme
Mission Youth has also rolled out a special financial assistance program for youth in distress. Financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh can be provided under the scheme to youth in distress for setting up gainful self-employment units
For purposes of this programme, the term youth in distress would mean any person between the age of 18 to 40 years who has lost any next of kin/family member in insurgency-related action, cross border shelling or mine blast incident in Jammu and Kashmir and shall include any such person who or his/her family member has suffered permanent incapacitation in such incidents.
Young Innovators Programme
Innovation may be defined as exploiting new ideas leading to the creation of a new product, process or service. It is not just the invention of a new idea that is important. It is actually “bringing it to market”, putting into practice and exploiting it in a manner that leads to new products, services or systems that add value or improve quality.
It possibly involves technological transformation and management restructuring. Innovation also means exploiting modern technology and employing out-of-the-box thinking to generate new value and to bring about significant changes in society.
Mission Youth under this program aims to enhance young people’s learning and development through a range of non-formal learning activities with a focus on pioneers’ experimentation and innovation in education, entrepreneurship, art, research and cross-sectoral partnerships.
Sector Specific Scheme for Dental Professionals
The scheme aims to address unemployment in dental sector by providing customized financial support to professionals for setting up dental clinics. An amount of 8 lakh shall be provided as financial assistance under this scheme for setting up a dental clinic.
The financial assistance under this scheme shall comprise of two components. Mission Youth shall provide a grant in aid/capital amount of 2 lakhs for each dental clinic to be set up under this scheme and it will be given as a special grant to unemployed dental professionals for setting up their own clinics. The rest amount of Rs 6 lakhs shall be financed by the bank as a Start-Up loan which shall repayable.
In the pilot phase, 200 clinics under the scheme are to be set up with the targeted employment of 400 doctors and 400 dental technicians.
Rise Together
Mission Youth, J&K has rolled out a specially designed community-oriented livelihood generation scheme for the youth of J&K under the name of ‘Rise Together. The programme envisions promoting community-based entrepreneurship optimally to generate jobs, and income and promote the spirit of social service among new-age young entrepreneurs of Jammu & Kashmir.
Under the scheme, the eligible Youth Groups are to be provided with financial assistance to the extent of Rs 20 lakh comprising of upfront subsidy component provided by Mission Youth (Minimum of Rs 2.5 lakh or 10 pecent of project cost) and a Loan provided by the Bank (70 percent of the project cost to the extent of Rs17.50 lakh).
The balance cost of the project, not less than 20 percent of the project cost, shall be self-financed/ self-arranged by the beneficiary youth group as Margin Money.
Skill Development
In order to bridge the gap between demand and supply of skilled workforce and to create a strong environment for professionals and technical skill development in Jammu and Kashmir, Mission Youth has been in touch with prominent organizations in the country including ICICI Foundation, Tata Technologies Ltd, Primal Foundation, Wipro etc for working on upgrading skills of youth in the sectors having high employability potential like Banking & Financial Services, Digital Marketing, Media Management etc.
Mission Youth also signed MoU with Bombay Stock Exchange Institute Limited for providing skill development training to youth.