KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Government Thursday granted sanction to the constitution of J&K Skill Development Mission, which will provide broad policy guidelines to be implemented by Technical Education Department in coordination with other concerned departments, Institutions and Autonomous Bodies.
The Chief Minister will head the Mission while as Ministers for Finance, Technical Education, Labour & Employment and the Minister for concerned Trade Sector will be the other members of the Commission, an official statement said this evening.
The Mission will be serviced by the Technical Education Department.
Under Skill Development Mission, a mechanism will be adopted to identify skill gaps and focus on specific skills in four broad categories which include Heritage Industry, Traditional and Modern Trades and Agriculture-based enterprises.
Meanwhile, moving forward on the initiative of Public-Private Partnership (PPP), the State Government has constituted a Steering Committee to oversee selection, formulation and time-bound implementation of projects under PPP mode.
As per the orders issued by the Finance Department, the Steering Committee would be headed by the Chief Secretary with Administrative Secretaries of the Finance, Planning & Development, Revenue, Law and the concerned implementing Department as its members.
The Government has also ordered creation of a PPP cell in the Finance Department to coordinate the implementation of infrastructure projects to be undertaken under PPP mode.
The PPP cell shall assist, apprise and guide the line departments, adopt and develop model documents for different sectors and coordinate the efforts of the line departments for effective implementation of PPP mode.
As per the orders, the PPP projects will be undertaken only after seeking approval of the state cabinet and the projects selected for implementation shall require concurrence of the Finance and Planning & Development Departments before bidding.
Nine sectors in which the Government has sanctioned implementation of projects under the PPP Mode included Roads, Tourism, Housing, Urban Development, Sports, Technical Education, Health, Horticulture and Industries and Mining.
The Cabinet vide its decision No: 169/13/2015 on December 2 had approved undertaking of various projects under the PPP Mode by different departments. The announcement to this effect was made by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed at a press conference after the Cabinet meeting.
PPP is a funding and operational model for public infrastructure projects requiring large finance. The line departments would identify and have ownership of such projects.
According to the Finance Minister, Dr Haseeb A Drabu the PPP Mode will lead to fast-track development and construction of projects in various sectors and will go long way in boosting infrastructure needs of Jammu and Kashmir.
He said the Union Government as well as various State Governments in India have switched over to this mode in some sectors for boosting development.
