Rs 700 Cr to inculcate tech skills, institutionalise sports

JAMMU: Stressing that education, skill building and sports are the core means for empowering youth, the Minister for Information Technology, Technical Education, Youth Services and Sports, Imran Raza Ansari today said that State government is making targeted efforts to empower youth by way of imparting them with requisite proficiency to achieve this objective.
The minister underlined that the government is making efforts to institutionalize sports in Jammu and Kashmir, while making skilled interventions while replying to the Discussion on Demand for Grants of his departments amounting to Rs 700.44 Crore, later passed by the house in the Legislative Assembly.
"All interventions that are being made, whether it is Sports, Skill Development, Technical Education or Information Technology, are aimed at youth welfare by facilitating skill development, encouraging entrepreneurship besides promoting sports and cultural exchanges", the Minister said.
The Minister informed that the network of ITIs and Polytechnics in the State are witnessing 100% admissions while as ITIs have seen 97% admissions in the state and are producing skilled manpower of about 25,000 persons annually. He informed that 78 new job-oriented trade units have been introduced in ITIs on self-financing basis, besides new Polytechnics have been established in Samba, Kathua, Reasi, Ganderbal, Anantnag, and polytechnics in Doda, Kishtwar and Udhampur will be made functional soon
In a mega recruitment drive conducted at Auqaf-Islamiy at Samba, 250 trainees were selected for 13 national/multinational companies.
Enumerating achievements of Jammu Kashmir State Board of Technical Education (JKSBOTE), the Minister said result of 6th semester regular students May-June 2017 session was declared within 48 hours after the conclusion of examination process.
Regarding promotion of Youth Services and Sports (YSS), he informed that several competitions were held in the State that saw participation from 85,955 players from Jammu and 1,38,540 from Kashmir, besides 1,878 players participated in National School Games hosted by J&K.
"The Department also hosted 62nd and 63rd National School Games, besides awarding sports scholarship worth Rs 27.65 lakh to 1,208 players who won medals in 62nd National School Games", the Minister said.
To increase the reach of sports, YSS has started construction of new campus for College of Physical Education Teacher at Gadoora, Ganderbal at the cost of Rs 30.39 crore and would take up the execution of Phase II costing Rs 43.533 crore during 2018-19, the Minister said.
Further, 109 development works for improvement of sports infra in the state are being undertaken to the estimated cost Rs. 223 lakh. "The Department is mulling to construct Volleyball Court in each district of the state at the aggregate cost of Rs. 176 lakh", he added.
Additionally, projects for construction of 22 Indoor Sports Stadiums, one in each district, under PMDP are also being finalized and would be constructed soon.
State Sports Council has also trained more than 24,000 young boys and girls in the field of self-defence, he added.
The Minister said that Jammu and Kashmir State Skill Development Mission (JKSSDM) was created in September, 2017 with a mandate to integrate skill development programmes, providing trainings to semi-skilled and unskilled youth, connecting them with the job providers, besides implementing and monitoring the policies and programmes under NSDM and SSDM.
Under the mission, 47,000 youth will be trained in different crafts in next three years, he informed.