Two reasons prompted authorities to plan providing skills to the youth on a massive scale so as to have direct impact on the socio-economic life of the State. One was the growing unemployment among the educated youth and the second was the tendency among some of the youth to adopt a path of violence and of defiance of public order. Both were disturbing and asked for a remedy that would work. Shift to acquiring of skills as the means of removing unemployment became national perception after 1970s. J&K was no exception. However, successive State Governments did not reflect seriously on the urgency of bringing about the shift and adopted lackadaisical attitude. Creating Engineering colleges and technical institutes in the State was the right thing to do but only meritorious students were able to obtain admission in them. The vast majority of students found that the avenues of obtaining skills that would help them earn a living independently were few and far between. This was a major social problem and the Government was seriously perturbed by the growing uneasiness among the youth community.
‘Udaan’ is the Government of India’s Special Industry Initiative, funded by Union Ministry of Home Affairs, to address the needs of the unemployed youth in J&K, who are Graduate, Post Graduate and three year Diploma Engineers. The Government came to the conclusion that if this scheme was to be made successful and result-oriented, then cooperation of Corporate Houses was inevitable. Therefore, while maintaining that principle focus of Udaan is to create an ecosystem that would bridge the gap between companies and J&K youth, who were either unaware of each other or unable to meet, Jayant Krishna, Chief Executive Officer of NSDC, during an exclusive chat with the Excelsior shared that the existing number of 68 Corporate partners would soon go up by 40 percent in the new financial year. The plan, we understand, is to bring more reputed companies as partner of the programme and connect aspirations of the Corporate World with the talented youth of Jammu and Kashmir.
From the statistics available through reliable source, we can draw the inference that Udaan scheme is showing the desired results. So far, 10,679 J&K youth have been trained under Udaan Programme and more than 8000 of them are suitably placed in various Corporate Houses across the country. During the last three years, 18,803 candidates joined Udaan Programme for skill development and 10, 679 of them completed the training. More than eighty percent of them are placed in reputed Corporate Houses and are very much satisfied with their job. For the year 2016-17, NSDC has the target of training more than 12000 J&K youth and ensuring that in total again more that eighty percent of them are suitably absorbed in different companies across the country.
This data shows that Udaan could become a project that will be most effective in eradicating unemployment among the educated youth in our State. Thousands of State youth will have opportunities of interacting with the youth from different States of the country. This will help in strengthening mutual trust and understanding between them. The scheme also has the potential of cementing national integration. Unemployment among the educated youth of J&K is a chronic problem. The Government is the largest employer but it has reached the saturation point. Consequently, as the Corporate Houses are committed to make the Udaan a success, we would expect the local Corporate Houses in the State also make their contribution in reducing unemployment in the State. Success of Udaan is ample proof that the Union Government is seriously concerned that the youth in the State should be provided opportunities of building their career and contributing to the development of the country.
While this is all very satisfying, we would also like to bring home to the youth in the State that they too have some responsibility towards their state and the country. The nation does not expect from them only meritorious service in their respective professions and skills but also a fair amount of patriotism because it is the Indian nation that is providing them the opportunity of building their career. They owe something to the nation also. An important aspect of the Udaan scheme is of helping and guiding the youth in establishing their independent small scale business units for which not only technical expertise but also bank loans on soft terms would be made available to them. Self employment is perhaps the most desired way of living a hassle-free life and in the process helping the country grow its economy
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