Ranchi, Sept. 4: Enthused by the success of the first job fair at the employment exchange office in Jamshedpur that witnessed a footfall of 5,000 yesterday, the labour, employment and training department now wants to open career study-centres-cum-vocational guidance units at six places across the state.

The state has earmarked Rs 50 lakh for this project in the 2009-10 fiscal.

The centres will come up at six sub-regional employment exchange offices in Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Hazaribagh and Dumka tentatively in October. The idea is to make more and more youths employable besides giving a fresh lease of life to the sub-regional employment exchange offices that are losing their productivity.

The career study centres will offer employment news besides storing competitive books and application forms for both government and non-government jobs. While the vocational guidance units will conduct career counselling through experts from different fields. The experts will also visit colleges and schools to organise special counselling sessions for students.

Besides, there will be a facility of online registration for school and college students. For this, laptops will be provided to senior officials posted in the sub-regional employment exchange offices.

Assistant director (employment) Satish Suman said: “The director-general of the Union labour, employment and training department has issued a directive to turn employment exchanges into hubs of activities. We hope to start the career study centre-cum-vocational guidance units by next month.”

After Jamshedpur, it is now Dhanbad’s turn to host a mega job fair followed by the district employment exchange offices of Seraikela or Chaibasa. “The next employment fair will be held in Dhanbad in the first week of October,” Suman confirmed. The two-day fair at Jamshedpur came to an end today.

Jamshedpur or Chaibasa has been chosen to host the job fairs in view of concentration of industries in the region. While Adityapur industrial area in the Seraikela-Kharsawan district offers a pool of employment opportunities, iron ore mines and cement units of West Singhbhum are also sources of jobs for the youths of Chaibasa.

Experts are of the opinion that such fairs will play an important role in deciding the industrial future of the state. “Once we start offering suitable jobs to the youths from rural as well as urban areas, it will send positive feelers to the masses,” pointed out B.M. Lal Das, the deputy director of the state industries department.