J-K Govt raises fund for self-employment
JAMMU: Keeping its word, Jammu and Kashmir Government today announced raising of Self-employment Margin (SEM) money by ten times to Rs 100 crore to give a boost to educated unemployed youth in the state.
"We want to focus on the self-employment of the youth force in Jammu and Kashmir and encourge it to go for such ventures. In this direction, we have increased the margin money from Rs 10 crore to Rs 100 crore", Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told the Legislative Assembly.
Intervening in a discussion on recruitments and the employment policy of his Government, he said this has been included in the 2007-08 budget.
The State Government, Azad said, was implementing J-K self-employment scheme for providing loan assistance to the educated unemployed youth in the age group of 18-40 years.
The Chief Minister said that the state's PSC would complete all its pending selection exercises by the end of this year. The SSRB would complete half of its selection process by June this year, he said.
He said vacancies as and when created were referred to various recruitment agencies and given the massive response of applicants, the selection takes longer time than required.
Azad said the chairmen of the two recruiting agencies have assured him that the process of selection would be speeded up and the backlog cleared by end of this year so far as PSC was concerned. 50 per cent of the referred vacancies would be cleared by SSRB by next June, he said.
The State Government has recommended filling up of 19,000 vacancies to various recruiting agencies, including PSC.
Of these, 4455 candidates have been recommended for appointment by PSC and Service Selection Recruitment Board (SSRB).
As many as 6956 vacancies have been filled up on contractual basis and 2771 appointments have been done under the sports category, Consumer Affairs Minister Taj Mohi-ud-din told the Assembly in reply to a question.
He said 22959 educated unemployed people have been engaged as temporary teachers in the state.
The Cabinet has taken a decision to engage unemployed agriculture graduates under a teaching scheme on an honorarium of Rs 1500 per month, he said, adding about 900 posts of physical education teachers would be shortly filled up.
In reply to another question, Health Minister Mangat Ram Sharma said that the State Government has taken steps in order to solve the problems faced by the unemployed uneducated youth.
These include the decision taken to fill up all the vacant posts available in certain departments on contractual basis, he said, observing that appointments were also made on the compassionate grounds for militancy-affected people and next of kin of Government servants who die in harness. (PTI)