Bhubaneswar, April 5: Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to enhance the skills of the urban poor to improve their job prospects.
Apart from training, the youth living in slums would also get placement assistance and loans from nationalised banks.
Youths above 18 years are eligible for training under the Skill Training for Employment Promotion amongst Urban Poor (STEP-UP) — a programme that targets urban poor for imparting quality training. There is no minimum educational qualification for selection to the programme.
Dillip Kumar Routrai, BMC slum improvement officer, said leading city-based institutes such as Apparel Training and Designing Centre (ATDC), Central Institute for Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET), Central Toolroom Training Centre (CTTC) and Institute for Entrepreneurship Development (IED) were roped in to train the youths under STEP-UP.
At ATDC, the youths will be trained in basic industrial sewing, machine operation and advanced industrial sewing machinery operation. Similarly, they will be trained in electrical maintenance, house wiring, welding and plumbing at CIPET, and basic fitting, turner, welding and plumbing at CTTC.
After the training at ATDC, the youths will get a minimum salary of Rs 5,000, but the institutes will ensure that at least 70 per cent of the students admitted to the programmes get employed. For imparting training to the youths, the institutes will get money through BMC and the training period will vary from two to six months.
Till date about 2,000 youths have taken admission in various city-based institutes under STEP-UP. However, the target is 3,000.
The maximum number of students has taken admission at the IED, developed by the industries department, government of Orissa, at Mancheswar.
“More than 2,000 youths are being trained at IED in trades such as mobile phone repairing, computer-aided designing, mushroom cultivation, tailoring, pathological testing, plumbing, wool knitting and phenyl, liquid soap, candle, leaf plate, soft toys, artificial jewellery and incense stick making,” said Routrai.
Sunanda Rath, a student who is learning artificial jewellery making at IED, said: “The STEP-UP initiative under Swarna Jayanti Sahari Rozgar Yojaya (SJSRY) enables the urban poor to achieve something which was never possible before. Students are also given the assurance that after their training is over, the BMC will organise assistance from banks for entrepreneurship development.”
The BMC will be the largest urban local body in the state to get more than 3,000 youths enrolled through the STEP-UP programme under SJSRY.
“After seeing the successful implementation of the programme, the government has asked us to fill the vacancies of the previous year as well so that more youths in the city belonging to the urban poor category can be included in the initiative,” said Routrai.
The time required to undergo the training varies from four to six months and during training a youth will get a monthly stipend of Rs 400 as incentive.
