Udupi (Karnataka) : Pramod Madhwaraj, Minister of State for Fisheries, Youth Empowerment and Sports, said that youth should develop soft skills to improve their prospects of getting employed.
He was speaking after inaugurating the Placement Linked Skill Development Training Programme-cum-Udyog Mela organized by the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports to mark the valedictory of the National Youth Week celebrations held on the occasion of the 154th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. Nearly 40 companies from Udupi, Mangaluru and Bengaluru participated in the Udyog Mela.
Mr. Madhwaraj said that nearly 100 acres of land in the 350 acres of land available with the Zonal Agricultural and Horticultural Research Station at Brahmavar had been kept aside to encourage Information Technology and Biotechnology companies if they intended to start their branches.
In the last two-and-a-half years, none of the Bengaluru-based IT and BT companies had shown any interest to move out from there. Besides, the youth from Udupi district preferred to go to Bengaluru than remain employed here. Hence, his department had decided to hold Udyog Mela here. The youth from the district could get placements at the mela.
He told that his department officer’s informed that normally, about 6,000 youth registered for such melas. Of them, about 500 got placed by the companies participating in the mela. The rest could not get placed because of their presentation skills or problems in facing interviews or other soft skills.
Hence, the skill development programme is being planned so that those who failed to get jobs got trained in skills and got placed the next time, he said. His department is holding the first such training programme in the State here. If this initiative will be successful, it would be replicated in other places. The candidates participating in the skill development programme would get 150 hours of training, he said.
Priyanka Mary Francis, Chief Executive Officer of Udupi Zilla Panchayat, G. Anuradha, Additional Deputy Commissioner, Janardhan Tonse, zilla panchayat member, Roshan Kumar Shetty, Assistant Director of Youth Empowerment and Sports, were also present.
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