6-years on, payments of advertisement yet to be released
Kashmir Press Service
Srinagar: Seven years after New Delhi introduced the Rs.1,000-crore Udaan project —a flagship programme to provide Kashmiri youth with professional training and jobs, newspapers of Jammu and Kashmir who were asked to publish advertisements amounting in crores are still awaiting for the payment for their bills.
Udaan was introduced in 2011 as a goodwill gesture following mass protests in Kashmir the previous year.
The idea behind the scheme was to incentivise Indian corporations to visit Kashmir, meet with students and provide them with training and jobs. Under the scheme, private companies received Rs 1.35 lakh per candidate.
The advertisements were distributed to the newspaper by the state Information Department who ran a campaign regarding the recruitment drives and counseling sessions across valley. But to utter disappointment, they are yet to release the payment for the said media campaign which costs around crores to the department.
Though training was not covered, there was a reward of Rs 50,000 for organisations that arranged a job for a candidate. Grants were not made available to public enterprises, and perhaps as a result, of the 88 companies that participated in Udaan, all but five were privately owned.
Based on a memo received from the NSDC through the Right to Information Act, reveals that 31,903 candidates joined training as against a target of 90,000; 22,237 completed training; 14,694 were offered jobs and 9,780 accepted their offer.
The data indicated that 20% of the candidates and 50% of the job offers came only in the last three months of the scheme. The NSDC did not respond to HT’s requests for more information about this last-minute jump in enrolment.
According to a senior official, some corporations intensified their efforts to take advantage of the government’s grant before it was too late.
Previously, the government ordered an audit of the skill program Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) after media reports claim of having trained about two million youth under the scheme.
Udaan has been forced to rely on trainers more than big employers, resulting in, among other things, a paucity of jobs. The training company Prolific Systems and Technologies Private Limited, for instance, was given a target of 3,500 candidates, ended up training only 920, and connected only 410 to job offers.
Udaan is a centrally funded skill enhancement scheme for J&K youth implemented by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). It is a special initiative to address the needs of the educated unemployed in the state who are graduate, post graduate and three year diploma engineers.
The aim of the scheme is to provide skills and job opportunities to the J&K youth and simultaneously provide exposure to corporate India towards the rich talented pool available in the State.
The target is to reach out to 40000 youth in J&K over a period of 5 years. The Udaan programme is designed to encourage corporates to travel to J&K meet with the youth and hire aspiring youth who wish to explore the opportunity to work with corporates. Udaan provides a framework of support to the youth to travel, undergo training in firms and transit to work.
Under UDAAN scheme, the selected candidates undergo rigorous training, ideally between 3 to 6 months, for a defined program. Travel, boarding and lodging costs are reimbursed.
A stipend is also provided to the candidate during the training period. At the end of training, candidates are assessed based on their training for a job position.
Around, 10555 JK youth who have joined Udaan training programs till July 2017, out of which placement orders have been made for 4,984 youth.
The aspiring candidates can register for Udaan on the link: https://udaan.nsdcindia.org/.
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