Srinagar: Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo on Monday chaired an Apex Committee meeting to review the progress of Mission YUVA, aimed at promoting entrepreneurship and employment generation across Jammu and Kashmir.
The meeting was attended by senior officers from various departments, representatives of financial institutions, district administrations and other stakeholders associated with the implementation of the mission.
During the meeting, the chief secretary reviewed the performance achieved under the four foundational pillars of Mission YUVA — culture, capital, capacity and connectivity.
He assessed district-wise achievements, institutional preparedness, credit facilitation, entrepreneurship development and bottlenecks in implementation.
Atal Dulloo stressed the need for coordinated efforts among departments, banks and district administrations to transform Mission YUVA into a major platform for youth empowerment and economic growth.
The chief secretary directed district administrations, Small Business Development Units and banks to expedite disposal of pending applications and strictly follow timelines prescribed under the scheme.
He emphasised timely verification of applications, approvals by District Level Implementation Committees and speedy loan sanctioning.
Reviewing the capacity-building component, the meeting was informed that more than 21,000 applicants had completed hybrid-mode entrepreneurship training while over 300 training centres and more than 200 trainers had been activated across the Union Territory.
Plans for collaboration with Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute were also discussed to strengthen entrepreneurship and management training.
The chief secretary said Mission YUVA should evolve beyond a financial assistance programme and become a comprehensive ecosystem for nurturing entrepreneurship and creating long-term livelihood opportunities.
Secretary Labour and Employment Kumar Rajeev Ranjan informed the meeting that the mission aims to create employment opportunities through nano enterprises, new MSMEs, business acceleration initiatives and innovative enterprises.
He said the programme focuses on awareness generation, credit facilitation, capacity building, market linkages and business support systems.
The meeting was informed that more than 1.07 lakh applications had been received so far, of which over 57,000 had been approved by District Level Implementation Committees.
Banks have sanctioned loans in more than 25,000 cases involving credit support exceeding ₹1,200 crore, while loan disbursement of around ₹1,119 crore has already been achieved in over 21,000 cases.
Officials said the mission has set a target of establishing 50,000 enterprises during 2026-27, including 44,000 nano enterprises, 4,000 new MSMEs and support for expansion of 2,000 existing MSMEs.
Reviewing the Information, Education and Communication component, the chief secretary was informed that the Udyam Jagriti 4.0 campaign during 2025-26 reached nearly 3.4 lakh citizens, while cumulative outreach through various awareness drives crossed 5.3 lakh people across Jammu and Kashmir.
Director Employment Harvinder Singh informed the meeting that Udyam Jagriti 5.0 for 2026-27 would focus on targeted mobilisation of college students, SHG women, trained youth and MSMEs.
He said hackathons, entrepreneurship competitions, innovation support systems and facilitation camps are also planned at institutional and Panchayat levels.
The meeting was further informed that over 900 motivators, more than 100 SBDU personnel and several Business Help Desk members had been engaged across districts to provide handholding and enterprise facilitation support to aspiring entrepreneurs.
On market connectivity, officials informed the meeting that progress has been achieved in onboarding stores and products on the Mission YUVA Seller App and ONDC-linked platforms to improve digital market access for local entrepreneurs.
