Vice Chairman, J&K Khadi and Village Industries Board, Peerzada Mansoor Ahmad Soharwardhy today asked the youth to adopt entrepreneurship as a career prospective and establish their own income generating units and become job providers rather than job seekers. The youth should come forward and avail maximum benefits of government sponsored schemes especially Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) which ensures creation of employment in both rural and urban area of the country.Vice Chairman said this while reviewing the status of PMEGP and Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) during a meeting convened with all district officers of Jammu Province.PMEGP scheme is a credit linked Scheme of Govt. of India by merging erstwhile REGP and PMRY scheme in order to generate continuous and sustainable employment opportunities in Rural and Urban areas of the country, to provide continuous and sustainable employment to a large segment of traditional and prospective artisans, rural and urban unemployed youth in the country through setting up of micro enterprises and to facilitate participation of financial institutions for higher credit flow to micro sector.
Under the scheme, maximum project cost of Rs 25 lakh is being provided in manufacturing sector and Rs 10lakh in Service Sector. District wise status of PMEGP was discussed deliberately and it was informed to the Vice Chairman that the Board has provided financial assistance to unemployed youth for establishing 108 units in Jammu division involving an amount of Rs 123.78 lakh as margin money against the total sanction of 129 units during the current financial year against the target of 398 units.Secretary KVIB, Mir Afroz informed the Vice Chairman that these 129 units shall further generate the employment opportunity for around 400 numbers of local youth. The meeting was further informed that the applications are now being received online which helps in bringing transparency in the system. Online mechanism now ensures the candidates to monitor their applications with its status.Vice Chairman directed the officers to complete all necessary formalities once they received the applications so that the case shall be approved and forwarded for sanctioning of funds in given time frame. He also asked them to follow the guidelines properly while verifying the candidates for approval. The youth should be provided proper assistance from the board and also to help them in choosing business units as per the requirement of the area and the market.
Mansoor Ahmad directed the officers to reach out to the youth especially of far flung areas with the benefits of the scheme and to conduct camps on regular basis for spreading awareness among them about the scheme. He asked them to put in sincere efforts in making our youth stand on their own and further generating employment for others.“Adequate funds are available with the board but proper publicity should be provided to the schemes being implemented by the board especially the new introduced online operation of cases under PMEGP”, Vice Chairman said.While reviewing the Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI), status of establishment of clusters at district level was discussed. Vice Chairman asked the Secretary KVIB to expedite the process of submitting DPRs for further action in regenerating the sick units. It was informed that one cluster will be established in a district for the purpose.Stressing on the involvement of Legislators in achieving the objective of the schemes, Vice Chairman directed the officers to regularly meet MLAs of their respective districts to seek their cooperation in providing employment opportunities to the unemployed youth.Among others, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Jammu Division Santosh Saraf, Deputy Chief Executive Officer KVIB, Muzzafar Alaqaband and Tufail Ahmed besides district officers and senior officers of KVIB were present in the meeting.