Halt on fresh business training renders much hyped centre ‘useless’
Abrar A. Mattoo
SRINAGAR, Aug 25: The much hyped Satellite Office of the J&K Bank at Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute, Pampore is lying defunct since last two years as no fresh activities have been conducted under the flagship employment generation program Seed Capital Fund Scheme (SCFS).
The staff posted by the Bank authorities at the satellite office under Shere Kashmir Employment and Welfare Program for Youth (SKEWPY) has been rendered workless as JKEDI has not been allowed to conduct training programs under the SCFS due to paucity of funds.
There have been no meetings of the Steering Committee since February 2020. The committee headed by the Commissioner Secretary Labor and Employment Department is mandated to grant approval to the cases of youth trained by JKEDI under SCFS for entrepreneurship development.
There are hundreds of cases of the unemployed youth pending for approval even as they have completed their training in 2019-20 and have also completed the required formalities.
The satellite office was supposed to act as a link between JKEDI, its district centres and the concerned J&K Bank branches for easy processing and disbursal of loan cases of the prospective entrepreneurs. The satellite office is also responsible for making financial appraisals of the cases before they would get approval of the Steering Committee.
However, the staff posted there has little or no work to do at all after the training activities under SKEWPY and SCFS were stopped by the institute. This has caused a heavy loss to the bank resources as no potential output is being fetched after paying hefty salaries to the staff.
“There is nothing new for the satellite office to do as no new cases are being produced by JKEDI. When JKEDI is not able to train the unemployed youth, what is the purpose of this office. It is sheer wastage of resources. This manpower can be put to some better use by the J&K Bank somewhere else,” an official wishing anonymity told the Kashmir Despatch.
The satellite office is housed in the main administrative building of the JKEDI and was at the core of entrepreneurship development in its early days but has lost its relevance. Notably, JKEDI and JK Bank have inked an MoU wherein the former identifies and trains the unemployed youth for financial linkage by the bank to help them establish their own ventures. And for this, JKEDI had offered a huge chunk of source at its main campus for establishment of a satellite campus and a bank branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank only to facilitate the smooth and timely process of the loan cases.
“The administration should take a call as to whether this office has something important to do or is just for the heck of it. This setup should either be given proper assignments vis a vis entrepreneurship development or closed down to save on the resources. The purpose stands defeated as of now,” the official added.
