Secretary Rural Development Department & Panchayati Raj, Sheetal Nanda today inaugurated conference on ‘Placement Opportunities in Tourism & Hospitality Sector for J&K Youth’ at Panchayat Bhawan.Speaking on the occasion, the Secretary exhorted upon the representatives of tourism and hospitality sector to help the concerned agencies involved in this program towards enhancing the capabilities of Himayat trained youth in order to fit the industry demands.Sheetal Nanda also assured all kind of support to the stakeholders, especially companies participating in the conference, which will be contributing in placing the trained candidates of Himayat-DDUGKY.The Secretary asked the Project Implementing Agencies (PIA) to get the perspective of current market demands as well as requirements of industry and use the inputs in designing the training modules of Himayat candidates accordingly.Apart from presenting the overall view of Himayat’s achievements and best practices initiated by the team in J&K, Chief Operating Officer, (COO) Himayat Mission Management Unit, (HMMU) Kapil Sharma listed out the discussion points for the industry regarding challenges in Tourism and Hospitality sector, including mismatch in employers’ demand and candidate’s acquired skills set, emergence of ecotourism as emerging industry and readiness of PIA to adopt new age technologies & opportunities in the prospective sectors.Representatives from tourism and hospitality sector spoke on various aspects and scope of employment in this sector across the country.