In a welcome development Government of J&K is establishing two Centers for Invention, Innovation, Incubation & Training (CIIIT) in Jammu & Kashmir in collaboration with Tata Technologies to strengthen industry-academia partnership and to bring quality improvement in technical education. The two centers are being built at Government Polytechnic College, Jammu and Government Polytechnic College, Baramulla and shall be established at a cost of approximately Rs 360.00 crores – the centre at Baramulla is slated to open by October 2020, while the centre at Jammu is expected to be ready by November 2020.
This information was given by an official spokesperson on Thursday following a meeting of Lt Governor Manoj with a team from Tata Technologies. The establishment of these two centres will bring qualitative improvements in the field of technical education and will facilitate to create a ready pool of skilled manpower like engineers and technicians which will augment the industrial growth and in turn employment avenues in the region.
Unemployment is the biggest challenge that the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is face to face with. It goes without saying that in absence of a sound private sector, the government is the only employing agency for the educated youth of the UT. The establishment of CIIIT, as suggested by the officials, would help create a ready pool of skilled manpower like engineers and technicians and thus enhance the employability of the unemployed youth. The Tata Technologies is setting up nine competency centers and these centers will be useful for students from ITI, Diploma, B Tech, M Tech to enhance their skills in line with current Industry needs and future technology trends thus making them eligible to pursue employment avenues outside the UT too.
The UT government will have to take up the unemployment issue more seriously. It is pertinent to mention here that while abrogating Article 370 and 35 A and bifurcating the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, the Government of India had announced that nearly 50 thousands vacancies in government departments would be filled in record period of time. However, it is more than one year now and the unemployed are still waiting when this promise will be translated into reality. Secondly, there are thousands of daily-wagers and casual workers working in different government departments from years together. This unfortunate lot has been hitting streets every now and then demanding regularization of their services and remittance of their wages. Their pleas are falling to deaf ears and no one from the administration has taken their grievances seriously. The UT government would do a great favour to the populace if the genuine demands of these poor workers are adhered to. The UT government should also explore possibilities of facilitating the J&K unemployed youth to look for jobs in rest of the country in private sector too. With the establishment of CIIIT centres, in future, the UT will be having a poll of both educated and skilled youth available and thus tying for employment with big business houses wouldn’t be that difficult.
