Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday pledged to continue support to an ambitious project for providing skill training to the youth in Jammu and Kashmir that aimed at keeping the youth away from streets.
Mukherjee said the entire cost of the scheme, ‘Himayat’—that
aims at providing skill training to one lakh youth over the next five years—would be borne by the central government.
Four out of 10 people of J&K are in the 15-35 age group; many of them underemployed due to the absence of a thriving private industry in the state.
Mukherjee, however, has earmarked only Rs. 900 crore for police modernisation and R780 crore for states’ security-related expenditure. This year, the home ministry has spent Rs. 800 crore and Rs. 947 crore on these two schemes, respectively.