Six lakh unemployed youth registered in Kashmir: Government

There are about six lakh unemployed youth registered in Jammu and Kashmir, the state assembly was told Thursday.

About 6 lakh educated unemployed youth of the state have been registered with district Employment and Counselling Centres (E&CC) up to December 2011, said Labour and Employment Minister Abdul Gani Malik in reply to a question.

Out of these, 40,559 are professionals and 3,695 are other skilled youth, he said, adding that the Sher-e-Kashmir Employment and Welfare Programme for the Youth (SKEWPY) has been launched in the state to tackle the problem of unemployment in a systematic and coordinated manner.

Terming it a dynamic programme capable of improvement on the basis of experience under the guidance of the Employment Facilitating Agency, Malik said there was no need to have a new policy for the present.

Launched by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in December 2009, SKEWPY has provision of stipends to registered unemployed youth depending on their education, to enable them go in for self-employment ventures besides government jobs.