SHILLONG: The Women’s Empowerment Committee of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly has found several loopholes in the implementation of Skill Development Training programmes of different departments of the state government.
The panel asked all the departments to ensure coordinated efforts to address the issue of unemployment in the state.
The committee on Friday reviewed the entire skill development programme of the state government apart from the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) schemes and found that there was no consultation among the departments while implementing the scheme.
During the meeting, the Employment Registration Officer, who was also present, told the committee that Meghalaya among the Northeastern states, has the least number of unemployed youths.
“We have told them to verify this as unemployment here is very severe and is related to all the issues of drugs and broken families,” Lyngdoh said.
The officials, who were present in the meeting, admitted that many of the youths from the state who go outside the state do face issues of adjustment.
Out of the 5000 youths from Meghalaya who were trained in health and hospitality sector in the last 4 years, only around 500 of them have been employed.
According to Lyngdoh, in health sector, youths were being paid inadequately which is also a main reason for the drop outs and the committee has asked the Project Director of the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), to prepare an inspection report for the committee and visit these centres outside the state as large number of trainees are girls and the committee wants to see the wellbeing of the individuals.
Appreciating the Meghalaya State Skill Development Society for initiating the idea of developing safe houses in other cities in Guwahati, Delhi and Bangalore, the committee was not impressed with overall skill development programme of the Commerce and Industries department.
The committee was informed by the Joint Director of the department that they have 7 training centres and their budget was Rs 30 lakh.
“We are of the impression that that they don’t have a follow up programme and they don’t track their trainees and it appears that trainees attend the programme as they are offering a stipend of Rs 500. We have told the department to review their programme,” Lyngdoh said
She also said that urban affairs department is offering a lot of skill training programmes whereas other line departments like tourism and commerce and industries are not linked to these training programmes.
The committee also questioned the fisheries department over its claim of constructing over one lakh fish ponds in the state whereas the total product is not even 5000 metric tonnes annually.
While checking the live register report of the Employment Registration officer, it was found that there are around 12000 under metric youths, 8000 matriculates and 4000 graduates who are looking for jobs and the committee has asked the Principal Secretary of the labour department, DP Wahlang to submit a plan of action.
“We have asked for plan of action so that we can review it and formulate and submit a report to the CM’s office to see where are we going wrong,” Lyngdoh added.
