JAMMU: Secretary of Labour & Employment, Rehana Batul today held threadbare discussions with all the stakeholders for further bringing down the unemployment rate of the UT at par with the National Average.
The meeting was attended by the Director of Employment, Nisar Ahmad; Mission Director, NRLM, Indu Kanwal Chib; Director of Animal Husbandry, Jammu; Representatives from Agriculture, Industries & Commerce, Handicrafts, KVIB, KVIC, Mission Youth, J&K Bank besides other concerned officers.
At the onset of the meeting, the Secretary impressed upon the stakeholders to work in close coordination with each other and in an altruistic mindset. She made out that more than a dozen departments are working for employment generation here and implementing many more schemes in this pursuit.
Rehana Batul maintained that all the departments should learn from each other’s best practices for replicating them in the implementation of their schemes. She advised each of them to go through each other’s schemes and the method of implementing them by the concerned so that there is coherence and creation of a domino effect by the same.
She stated that our sole motive should be to contribute towards providing ample opportunities to the aspiring youth. She asked them to be ready to sit with the financial institutions to iron out any differences to meet our targets smoothly.
The Secretary also applauded the role of NRLM and KVIB in doing a commendable job towards the creation of employment opportunities for rural youth. She called upon others to learn from their expertise. She enquired from them about the targets they have been able to meet till now and their expectations till the end of the financial year. She called on them to make it a motive to further bring the unemployment rate down to par with the National average in the year ahead.
The MD, NRLM shared a document with the stakeholders defining the method of assistance and mentoring their organization is providing to the SHGs. She said that the document would decipher to them the strategy to cut out on NPA rates besides being pivotal in enhancing their approval rates from the concerned bank branches too.
Earlier, the Director of Employment, Nisar Ahmad gave an overview of the employment scenario of J&K. He made out that in the recent survey of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the unemployment rate in the UT has taken a dip and reduced to around 4% from earlier 5.2% (2021-22).
It was given out that the employment department is going to facilitate all those implementing employment generation schemes here so that the rate of unemployment is brought to just 3%, which is at par with the National Average in the country.
