Shimla. Youth are the invaluable wealth and future of the nation. To further nurture the youth, the government was laying emphasis on skill enhancement of youth through several innovative schemes of the Central and State Governments. With the aim of providing employment opportunities to rural youth in organized and unorganized sectors, successful implementation of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana is being ensured in the state.
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana is an ambitious scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. The main objective of this scheme is to provide employment to poor rural youth by providing them skills on minimum wages or regular monthly wages. Under this scheme, efforts are being made to provide fixed employment to 70 percent trained youth in various sectors. Free hostel facility is also being provided to the trainees along with free training. The duration of each course is three to 12 months. After providing the training, post placement tracking of trainees is done for one year.
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana aims at rural poor youth between 15 and 35 years of age, with the purpose to create income diversity in poor families and help rural youth realize their career aspirations. The weaker sections like disabled, women and others upto 45 years old can also avail the benefit of the scheme.
Families living below the poverty line, family members of paid workers under the MGNREGA with a minimum of 15 days of work in the last 12 months, National Health Insurance Scheme card holders and BPL and PDS Card (Antyodaya Anna Yojana) holders, family members of Self Help Group (SHG), members of a registered SHG in the village under NRLM and families covered under auto inclusion parameters as per Social and Economic Caste Census-2011 will also be eligible under this scheme.
At present, apparel, hospitality, green jobs, beautician, sewing machine operator, baking, storage operator, spa, unarmed security guard, electrician domestic, sales associate, accounting, banking sales representative, computer hardware assistant, tele executive-live sciences etc. trades are being run under this scheme.
There are immense opportunities for employment, self-employment and job creation in areas such as digital skills, social media, electronics, visualization, television and mobile repair in the state. Under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana youth are trained under various trades and their skills are developed. Through these trades, the state is leading the semi-skilled youth on the path of self-reliance.
Under this scheme, training has been provided to 6681 youths. At present, training is being provided to 1800 apprentices through various centers of the state and employment opportunities have been provided to 3500 apprentices.
Deen Dayal Kaushal Yojana is giving shape to the dreams of the youth. This scheme came as a ray of hope for Harsha of Sawawa village of Arki in Solan district. Harsha was interested in fashion designing, but due to the poor financial condition of the house, she was not able to take courses related to fashion designing. After the information about DDU-GKY was made available by the local authorities, she completed a three-month course in the fashion designing trade in the year 2021. After getting training, she approached the placement cell of DDU-GKY and after some time she was selected by a private firm in Bangalore for the post of Machine Operator. She says that DDU-GKY has proved helpful in making her dreams come true.
By taking advantage of this scheme, youth of the state are becoming skilled and moving ahead on the path of employment and self-employment.
