Chandigarh, November 9: As part of the government’s crackdown on unscrupulous travel agents and overseas placement agencies, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday directed the Department of Employment Generation to hire a consultant or agency of international repute to develop a roadmap to facilitate the youth who intend to go abroad for the study and/or employment.
Presiding over the first meeting of the Governing Council of Punjab Ghar Ghar Rozgar & Karobar Mission (PGRKAM) here, the Chief Minister also underlined the need for a powerful framework to ensure synergy, oversight and effective coordination in the implementation of various employment generation schemes by multiple departments.
Captain Amarinder Singh underscored the need to find out ways and means to provide lucrative overseas employment opportunities for youth and suggested that the proposed globally reputed consultant or agency also be mandated to prepare a blueprint to offer better study prospects in the world-class colleges and universities across the globe, besides identifying jobs in foreign countries commensurate with the educational qualifications of the youth.
The consultant would also facilitate in the deployment/placement of Punjabi youth and also send them abroad on study visa, he said, directing the Employment Generation Department to utilize the services of aforesaid consultant/agency for designing a mechanism to launch a 24X7 job helpline and set the criteria for IELTS coaching as per international standards.
Underlining the need to chalk out a strategy for building a globally competitive and acceptable human resource in the state, Captain Amarinder Singh also asked the Employment Generation Department to create the necessary framework to facilitate wage and self-employment for the unemployed youth, besides improving employability through skill training/skill up-gradation. He further directed the Department to identify areas having potential for employment generation and to harness that potential with government intervention.
In order to reach and connect unemployed youth with prospective employers, the Chief Minister also asked the PGRKAM to make optimum use of social media platform, besides enhancing the scope of its existing digital portal for registering maximum number of unemployed youth, who could benefit from the state-wide employment drive under Ghar Ghar Rozgar Yojana.
During the meeting, Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi informed the Chief Minister that so far 4,01,300 youths have been gainfully employed under this programme, from April 1, 2017 till October 31, 2018.
To give focussed attention to the creation of more job opportunities for youth in the state, the country and abroad, the Chief Minister also decided to hold a meeting on the 10th of every month to review the progress of these targets. It was also decided in the meeting that the mission would also facilitate youth applying for government jobs.
The Chief Minister also gave the nod to constitute a committee under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary Finance, with Secretary and Director Employment Generation & Training as Members, to finalize modalities for office accommodation, recruitment of requisite staff and other financial requirements for PGRKAM. He also asked the PGRKAM to work out an action plan to generate database, divided into three components viz. jobseekers, job providers and others, which would further help in hand holding the jobseekers and the job providers, in addition to reaching out to every household in Punjab.
It was also decided at the meeting that PGRKAM would also explore the possibilities for engaging competent coaching institutes/agencies to provide quality coaching to aspirants, with an objective to promoting a level playing field, and giving marginalized and deserving aspirants a better chance to succeed in various competitive examinations conducted by the State and Central Governments.
Prominent amongst others present at the meeting were Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, Chief Principal Secretary to CM Suresh Kumar, ACS Industries & Commerce and IT Vini Mahajan, Principal Secretary Labour and Employment R. Venkat Ratnam, Principal Secretary Finance Anirudh Tiwari, Special Principal Secretary to CM Gurkirat Kirpal Singh and Secretary Employment Generation DK Tiwari.
