JAMMU: Minister for Agriculture Production, Javed Ahmad Dar, said that a total of 9.58 lakh self-employment/livelihood opportunities have been generated through schemes like Mumkin, Tejaswani, PMEGP, REGP etc. upto January 2025 in the past four years in J&K.
The Minister was replying on behalf of Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, to a question raised by Mubarak Gul in the Legislative Assembly.
The Minister said that the unemployment rate has not increased drastically in the Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir since 2019 which stood at 6.7% in the year 2019-20 to 6.1% in the year 2023-24.
He informed that 11,526 selections have been made by the JKPSC and JKSSB while 45688 private employment avenues have been generated in the industrial sector during the past two financial years. Besides, under MGNREGA, 3.01 crore person days have been generated upto January 2025 which provided employment to 8.07 lakh households.
The Minister informed that the government has launched dchemes like Mumkin, Tejaswani, Spurring Entrepreneurship, PARVAAZ, Tourist Village Development Program and alike initiatives under the Mission Youth program.
The Minister informed that the Government of Jammu and Kashmir has initiated Mission YUVA for self-employment and entrepreneurship to identify, support and empower 5 lakh identified potential entrepreneurs through a structured and tech-enabled approach. He said that the key goals of the initiative are to create over 1,37,000 new enterprises across sectors and generate more than 4,25,000 employment opportunities over the program’s 5 years.
The Minister said that during the past four years 246 Job Fairs were conducted in which 4893 placements were made by 2760 companies and 6640 candidates were recommended for skill training.
He said in order to address the unemployment, the government has taken many initiatives including the upgradation of Government Industrial Training Institutes through Public Private Partnership (PPP), Skill Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement (STRIVE), the establishment of CIIIT at Government Polytechnic Jammu and Government Polytechnic, Baramulla in collaboration with Tata Technologies.
He further informed that 3342, 3048, 1331, and 7851 youth have been trained under CTDP, B2V4, PMKVY and Women SHGs respectively.
The Minister said that, out of 4429 enrolled candidates, 3249 candidates have been certified under SANKALP. He added that the government is smoothly and successfully implementing the Centrally Sponsored Schemes PMKVY and SANKALP. He said that the Union Government has also approved the continuation of the Skill India Programme (SIP) until 2026, with a total budget of Rs 8,800 crore.