Patna: The state government seems to be in a hurry to launch the schemes under its seven resolves (Saat Nischay) without proper preparations as chief minister Nitish Kumar inaugurated the Kushal Yuva programme on Thursday despite only 39 out of the total 1,470 centres proposed under the scheme being ready.
Also, none of the 534 skill development centres of the state government is ready as all the 39 centres made operational on Friday belong to private agencies. Besides, only around 30,000 people have enrolled for the programme though over 30 lakh youths are targeted to benefit from the scheme in five years.
The Kushal Yuva programme was initially slated to be launched on November 15. A senior official in state labour resources department — the nodal department to execute the scheme — claimed that around 2,250 youths started getting trained at the 39 skill development centres from Friday.
“We will start training the next two batches at the skill development centres of the state government from January 1 and 16, respectively. Most of the centres will be ready by then,” said the official. Apart from the CM formally launching the scheme at Madhepura, labour resources minister Vijay Prakash also inaugurated a Kushal Yuva skill training centre at Astric Solution — Centre of Excellence at Khajpura, Bailey Road in Patna.
The skill development programme entails improving communication skills in Hindi and English and computer literacy through specifically designed courses of 240 hours over a period of three months to the youths in 15-25 age group, especially to those who are school or college dropouts, so as to impart them basic skills and bring them into the mainstream. Each batch would be of 40 students.
The CM had launched three schemes under ‘Arthik Hal, Yuvaon Ko Bal” programme on October 2. They included student credit card scheme for providing education loan up to Rs4 lakh, Swayam Sahayta Bhatta (self-help allowance) and Kushal Yuva Karyakram (skill development).
The self-help allowance scheme is also turning out to be a damp squib. Out of around 2 lakh 20,000 people who have applied for this scheme, only around 30,000 have enrolled for the mandatory skill development programme. The scheme entails monthly allowance of Rs1,000 for youths between 20 and 25 years for a period of two years.
The student credit card programme is being looked after education department while planning department is to execute unemployment allowance programme and labour resources department skill development programme.
Note: News shared for public awareness with reference from the information provided at online news portals.
