processing, BPOs, official management, and driving. The emphasis continues to be on the services sector, the main contributor to state’s GDP. All the students are given basic computer training so that they are in a position to add value to their jobs once they get it.
For a long time, a section of these trainees were seeking a laptop. The scheme lacks any additional funds to mange this luxury. Last week, Omar Abdullah surprised everybody when he made an announcement in EDI lawns that all trained boys and girls who will stay put at the places they are deputed as workers for two years will get a laptop as a gift to encourage retentions. This gift, interestingly, would have a joint ownership – the state and the central government. Jairam instantly agreed to the announcement.
The scheme is making an impact slowly but surely. Kashmiri boys and girls are serving dozens of private sector institutions within and outside the state. By and large, they are taking it a stepping stone to their socio-economic upward mobility. Interestingly, this lot of youth was less productive and had least contribution in state’s economy.
“I dropped out because of certain problems and would kill my time supporting my mother in her domestic chorus,” Sabeeha, a teenager from Srinagar’s Mehjoor Nagar said. “Himayat has enabled me to earn and it has changed my life and the way I was seen at home.” Humaira Rashid is working in Ludhiana. “From my batch, most of the students left their jobs and returned home but I stayed put and I am happy as long as I am earning.”
Raj Singh is from a BPL background in Ramban, a remote belt in Pir Panchal Mountains that lacks basics like roads, tapped water and light. “For me, it is plain magic that I operate a computer and I was trained in skills that nobody in my village had ever thought of,” an excited Singh told a huge audience. “I am going to earn and live a better life.”
Perhaps Omar Abdullah’s speech offered the key to the change. “We do not lack talent, confidence, or ability. It is the lack of opportunity that is the main problem,” Omar said. “We are capable to plucking stars from the skies, provided we get an opportunity.”
But opportunities can’t be manufactured!
