In his special address on the first day of 2-day conference of experts on the theme of ‘Accelerating Employment avenues through Entrepreneurship in J&K’, Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo today contemplated to create a feasible and enabling ecosystem for giving rise to over 50,000 success stories of entrepreneurship in the next 5 years here.
The conference organized jointly by the Labour & Employment, Skill Development Departments and Mission Youth is a platform for subject experts from different sectors including the local administration, academic institutions, financial organizations and other concerned stakeholders, who had made mark in their areas of operation.
In his address the Chief Secretary talked at length about the performance of the UT in raising the necessary infrastructure and formulation of policies for attracting investments to create employment opportunities for the local youth.
He mentioned several mega infrastructure projects like highways and tunnel projects costing around Rs 60,000 Cr, Udhampur-Baramulla Rail line costing about Rs 40,000 Cr, Hydro power projects of Rs 20,000 Cr, Jal Jeevan Mission of Rs 13,000 Cr to provide drinking water to all besides 2 AIIMS, IIT, IIM and other infrastructure projects in medical and education sectors.
He made out that coming up of these projects had created many job opportunities for our youth. He remarked that in addition to these the second set of opportunities included giving push to key drivers of our economy like Tourism, Agriculture and Handicrafts.
Dulloo maintained that the arrival of more than 2 crore tourists in 2023, initiation of Holistic Agriculture Development Programme (HADP) aiming at providing job opportunities to about 3 lakh people and creating 19000 enterprises besides making substantial increase in productivity and farmers income are other focus areas of administration.
The Chief Secretary referred to the New Central Sector Scheme (NCSS) for industrial development and doubling of exports in handicrafts sectors as other propellers in creation of employments here.He further added that to saturate the employment requirement of the UT and to fulfil the evolving aspirations of our youth, the UT needs to generate as many success stories of gainful enterprises as possible by enabling a suitable ecosystem here that smoothens and hastens the progress of establishing enterprises all over J&K.
He called on all the stakeholders including the administration, credit lending institutions and other organizations to simplify their processes and be readily available to the aspiring entrepreneurs for their handholding and capacity building. He called on devising a strategy out of this conference that is particular to our UT and usher in an environment that is favourable for making entrepreneurship of their choice by our talented youth.
In his keynote address the former Bureaucrat and Advisor to PM, Amarjeet Sinha highlighted the importance of professional knowledge that upgrades micro enterprises into small ones and small enterprises into medium business establishments. He discouraged laying focus on concessions like subsidies instead of prioritizing providing of end-to-end solutions for development of enterprises.
He made out that by making quality interventions in development of professional human resources J&K can develop a successful base of first generation entrepreneurs. He advised for giving more encouragement to entrepreneurial activities in the fields of green products and certified organic farming.
He termed J&K a treasure which could be turned into entrepreneurship hub of high-end products. He said that the handicrafts, dry and fresh fruit value addition can accommodate many more entrepreneurs in its fold. He called for adopting the models like ‘Buddha fellows' by credit organizations and establishment of producer companies in different sectors promoting the enterprises of rural women here.
In his address the former IAS Officer, DK Singh emphasises upon turning young, motivated job seekers into entrepreneurs by providing them support in establishing backward, forward linkages besides access to timely, low cost and adequate credit. He suggested for availing the services over Udyam portal for accessing a platform for making success in MSME sector.
In his speech the Principal Secretary, Finance, Santosh D Vaidya asked for replicating our stellar examples in the areas of sports, Agriculture and Horticulture that have impressed none other than Hon’ble PM recently. He called for making such examples in service sector and other areas of our strength here.He asked for making equitable development by resorting to sustainable growth by addressing the challenges faced in terms of availing technology (automation), trade frictions and growth in economy.
He termed that generation of livelihoods that sustain families is a challenge world over and can be addressed by equitable development of economy only.The technical session also witnessed presentations by the Secretary Labour in which he gave a model on development of nearly 4 lakh jobs and channelizing Rs 10,000 Cr credit investment across sectors.
The other presentations included those on the development of Agricultural sector and creation of successful enterprises there. The day also gave glimpses to participants about possibility of growth in Tourism, Handicrafts, Industries by their respective Administrative Secretaries throwing light on their plans to create thousands of new jobs through entrepreneurship and self employment here in the UT.