Rajesh Dhar
JAMMU: Despite making every effort to augment technical education sector in the State and promote entrepreneurial culture through skill development, the previous Government after its budget announcements in March 2015, showed mixed results in the field of technical education.
Government has completed few proposed projects and some are in pipeline, but the major project of establishing four new Polytechnics in the Districts of Doda, Kishtwar, Shopian and Poonch, is yet to see the light of the day. Reason? Land issues.
The previous Government had proposed to construct four new Polytechnics in the State, but it failed to initiate the construction work of the same because of the land issues as the people raised questions on the land identified for these Polytechnics. The land issues have been the customary business in our State and as such are becoming stumbling-blocks for new projects. Same land issue stopped the previous Government from initiating the construction work on this all important project, which shattered the hopes of thousands of aspirants.
According to the reliable sources, the construction work on 18 new Polytechnics is going on with good pace and the work is expected to be completed by March end in most of these Polytechnics. Though, these Polytechnics have already become functional since 2012-13, yet the completion of their construction work has increased the seating capacity in core and specialized engineering and non engineering disciplines.
The completion of these Polytechnics will give practical shape to the directions served by former Minister for Technical Education, Molvi Imran Raza Ansari with regard to speedy construction of various infrastructural projects being undertaken by the Technical Board. He had directed various agencies involved in the construction work to maintain close coordination in accomplishing the works within the stipulated time-frame.
It has been learnt that the newly established Polytechnics in the State have shortage of the staff, which leaves the trainees in the lurch and forces the Department to run these institutions via Academic Arrangement.
It has also been learnt that the Department of Technical Education, headed by Commissioner /Secretary, Hirdesh Kumar has already taken up the matter of the lack of staff in these institutions with the Government and is hopeful of earliest solution of this problem.
According to reliable sources, the previous Governm-ent had initiated series of skill development programmes throughout the State in accordance with the need of a particular area and provided vocational training centres to facilitate the aspirants to be skillful.
The previous Government had also taken initiatives to introduce streams like Travel and Tourism, Architectural Assistantship, Wood Technology, Textile Technology and Food and Information Technology in various Polytechnics and ITIs to train youth in these courses, which have huge employment potential.
When contacted, Commissioner/ Secretary, Technical Education, Hirdesh Kumar said that the previous Government was committed to planned development of Technical Education in the State and the Department is focused to provide need based, quality technical and professional human resources to the industry, business and community.
He said for providing job opportunity to the maximum trained youth, a Mega Job Fest was organized at Srinagar, which was launched by former Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed himself, adding that 300 trained youths were provided jobs in the private sector on the spot during the Fest. He said similar Job Fest will be held in Jammu soon.
Kumar further said that Regional Vocational Training Institute (RVTI) for women in Jammu and Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET) are also in the offing.
“The Department of Technical Education has envisioned creating a Human resource pool with spectrum of Technical competencies at cutting edge levels and is achieving its goals by expanding excess to Technical Education and Training to all through expansion and up-gradation while improving the quality standards of Education and Training by regular revision of curriculum through strong industry interaction,” expressed Hirdesh Kumar.
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