Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Party Additional General Secretary Dr. Sheikh Mustafa Kamal on Friday said that the predicaments suffered by J&K’s unemployed youth had taken an alarming turn.
Expressing concern over the peaking youth distress in Kashmir, Dr Kamal, in a statement issued here, said that the impending outreach focusing on Winning the J&K Youth’s Trust has added to the alienation levels of our educated and skilled and pushed them to the wall. “Restoring confidence among our youth is a monumental task. There is no alternative to undertaking this gargantuan task other than making a sincere outreach to our youth by giving them a sense of enfranchisement. The absence of any outreach from New Delhi to our youth, and current paralysis in governance evidenced by the figures and data of Government’s own agencies. Government has failed to manage the growing youth bulge in J&K, Ladakh,” he said.
Kamal said that there is no restraint on the anti-youth policies of the ruling dispensation. “The rampant disillusionment among JK youth draws on many things which includes depleting job avenues, widespread unemployment, looming insecurity, and wanton discrimination. Our youth like their counterparts elsewhere in the world are bright. The only thing that sets them apart from their counterparts in the rest of the country and the world is the absence of safer spaces to pursue their vocation. Besides that, the insecurity in their own land remains a primary hurdle in the direction of their empowerment. Fate of our promising youth continues to hang in balance, with everyday top-down government notifications and diktats pushing them towards a tipping point,” he said.
The present scenario, Kamal said, only spells doom. “It is anyone’s guess what the future will hold for a region which is festering with 25% youth unemployment, development deficit, backsliding of democracy, misgovernance , and deteriorating horticulture, agriculture, handicraft, manufacturing sectors. There are layers to the problems in J&K. But the widespread alienation among youth is the major area of concern, which can only be addressed by a fully empowered, and popular government. I hope New Delhi lives up to its promises on bridging Dil Ki Doori. So far nothing substantial has been done to achieve that end,” he said.
