Kolkata, June 6 : The West Bengal government is planning to impart skill training to 2.5 lakh unemployed rural youths in the state to enable them earn livelihood without migrating to cities, Minister Sadhan Pandey has said.
The Minister said the training programme by the Self-Help Group and Self Employment Department would be conducted with an "integrated approach" with various state welfare schemes to skill the youths across 10,000 villages.
"There is a huge number of unemployed youths in the state, especially in rural areas.
Some of these youths who are relatively educated are sometimes not interested in working in the 100-day work programme.
"They are happy to go to cities and take up jobs for Rs 5,000-7,000 per month.
Sometimes, they are swayed by certain political parties who promise them money in return for their labour," Pande said on the sidelines of an event here on Tuesday.
"I want to utilise this young resource.
My plan is to train these youths in a way that they do not have to migrate to cities. They can earn their livelihood in their villages. We have identified 10,000 villages from 1,030 gram panchayats in Bengal. Initially, 25 youths from each of these villages will be given training. So, a total of 2.5 lakh youths will be skilled," he said.
"At the end of the training, we will provide them assistance in the form of resources like building hatcheries and goat farms.
We will build greenhouses, where they can start horticulture or cultivation of herbs," he said.
--IANS
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Source: IANS
