Assam ITIs outliving their purpose? GUWAHATI, August 24: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has instructed all the departments concerned to solve the chronic problem of unemployment on a ‘‘mission mode’’, and in order to achieve the mission–mode target, he has laid stress on skill development programmes. In the first phase, the thrust will be on the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs). At the same time, employment exchanges will have to be activated anew, according to the Chief Minister’s instruction. The Chief Minister has also directed the officers heading the employment exchanges to visit other States to see how such States have been able to tackle the unemployment problem. There are about 20 lakh unemployed youth registered in the 52 employment exchanges of the State, but these exchanges have completely failed in their roles in the matter of providing scope for employment. As a result, the credibility of the employment exchanges has hit rock bottom. ‘‘There is no use of expecting anything from the State’s employment exchanges. They are not able to show to the registered unemployed youth any avenues of employment. The result is that the roadside vendors selling application forms for different jobs are thriving because they are able to provide us more information on employment opportunities. So this roadside business is growing more,’’ said Hiranya Saikia, an unemployed youth with a master’s degree. The Assam government has been iterating the need for skill development for quite some time. But in the ITIs of the State, courses are outdated and yet to be upgraded. As a consequence, the youth of the State have little or no inclination at all to enrol themselves in the ITIs because they feel that these institutes will not be able to make them employment– smart. In Assam, there are 28 government–run ITIs, eleven new ITIs are about to be put in place, and 15 ITIs are in the pipeline. This apart, the Assam government has given a proposal of Rs 135 crore to the Centre to set up two women ITIs. ‘‘We have to be in sync with time. The State government should have had a vision for the future. What is important is a range of courses that will meet the demands of the time in the future. This has not happened. As a result, most of the courses are defunct. Whenever a course is introduced in our ITIs, it remains as it is, and the government seems to be least bothered to wake up to new needs. This has basically affected the scope of employment generation through the ITI route,’’ said a high– level official of the Industry Department while talking to The Sentinel. According to the figures of the Employment Generation Mission, which is partially funded by the Government of India, the mission has been able to place about 16,000 youth in different vocations after imparting short–term training to them ‘‘at an expenditure of Rs 36.31 crore’’. The target for the current year is 12,000 youth. The basic question now is whether the Chief Minister has really any innovative ideas for the generation of employment or whether his talk of ‘‘skill development in a big way’’ is a mere rhetoric.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 00:12:30 +0000
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