SRINAGAR: The Government told Parliament that more than 34,700 women from Jammu and Kashmir’s minority communities have benefitted from special self-employment, education and leadership schemes run by the Ministry of Minority Affairs over the past decade.
Replying to an unstarred question in the Lok Sabha, Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that schemes such as Seekho Aur Kamao, Nai Manzil, Nai Roshni and USTTAD—now converged under the Pradhan Mantri Virasat Ka Samvardhan (PM VIKAS) programme—have played a major role in socio-economic empowerment of minority communities, especially women.
According to the state-wise data placed in Parliament, Jammu and Kashmir recorded 25,385 beneficiaries under the Seekho Aur Kamao skill development scheme, 4,580 under Nai Manzil, 2,950 under Nai Roshni, and 1,819 under USTTAD. Together, these programmes have reached 34,734 women and youth in the Union Territory. Ladakh, by comparison, recorded only two beneficiaries in the period under review.
Nationally, Rijiju said, more than 7.8 lakh people have been trained under these four schemes since their inception. Of these, Nai Roshni, a leadership development programme for women launched in 2012-13, alone trained 4.35 lakh minority women across India. “These interventions have helped instil confidence, improve employability and support entrepreneurship,” he said.
Breaking down the schemes, Rijiju told the House that Seekho Aur Kamao (launched in 2013-14) focused on upgrading skills of minority youth to make them employable or self-reliant, and trained 4.68 lakh beneficiaries nationwide. Nai Manzil (2015) offered school dropouts a chance to secure Class VIII or X certification alongside skill training, covering nearly 99,000 youth. USTTAD (2015) sought to preserve and modernise traditional artisan skills, reaching over 21,000 people. Nai Roshni, exclusively for women, aimed at leadership and financial literacy training for those aged 18 to 65 years.
The minister said these earlier schemes have since been merged into the PM VIKAS umbrella, which has only recently begun implementation. PM VIKAS, he added, “brings together skill development, entrepreneurship, education support for dropouts and leadership training for minority women in one integrated programme.”
