Axe falls on valley youth as govt pulls the plug on EDI

• PDP-BJP alliance does what two militant attacks couldn’t
• Funds not stopped, institute’s performance being reviewed: Drabu

The government itself is doing what two deadly militant attacks could not do to demolish the Jammu Kashmir Entrepreneur Development Institute (EDI) by drying up its funds to it.
Though various schemes run by EDI were providing opportunities to the State’s unemployed youth by helping them carve out a better future and by giving wings to their dreams, the State government has decided to choke its funds and close down various schemes it offered to the thousands of unemployed youth.
As per the Labour Bureau, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India (GoI) Jammu Kashmir has a very high unemployment rate in entire India and as per a survey conducted by the bureau in 2015-16, Jammu Kashmir has 72 unemployed persons per thousand, which means the number of unemployed youth in the State is over 9 lakh based on 2011 Census.
Of these more than 9 lakh unemployed youth only over 1.03 lakh of them are registered for employment assistance across 22 district employment and counselling centres of the State.
With such a huge unemployment rate, entrepreneurship could have been an alternate opportunity for the unemployed youth but EDI, which apart from providing the required resources was helping motivate these youth to acquire an entrepreneurial spirit and set up their own businesses, is finding its own existence in danger.
Last year, of the promised Rs 122.76 crore, the State government only issued Rs 55 lakh to EDI, the abrupt cut in funds hitting the unemployed youth hard.
Established by the State government in March 1997 to effectively enable entrepreneurship development in Jammu Kashmir, EDI started its regular activities from February 2004 and had positioned itself as a learning centre par excellence with the state-of-art regional centers across Kashmir, Ladakh and Jammu.
While the government has failed to fill up vacancies in its various departments, a fair share of unemployed youth were turning to entrepreneurship and EDI was giving them a helping hand.
The conflict-hit youth in the State had shown a good response to the different schemes of the GoI, State government and their joint schemes and were opening industrial units across the length and width of Jammu Kashmir.
An entrepreneur Harris Ahmad Dulloo who graduated in 2013 and runs City Sign Technologies, an adverting, signage and branding company at Khayam, said his business witnessed growth after he attended a training and mentorship programme at EDI besides availing finance from the institute.
“I got the training in March 2013 and my project was sanctioned in August 2013 and since then my business witnessed growth,” said Dulloo, who now looks after the branding of Coke, Four Square, Luminous and VIP Luggage.
Like Dulloo, another entrepreneur Tabasum Ara’s life changed after taking help from EDI.
Tabasum, a 12th pass out, who works in the services sector, now operates four boutiques and cosmetics shops in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, and besides earning her own livelihood now employs four more youth
However, to the utter dismay of other aspiring entrepreneurs, EDI would no longer be able to help them as it has almost been rendered defunct by the government by stopping its funding.
The drying of funds to EDI has already impacted 2100 to 2200 youth whose Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) are ready.
Dharminder Singh, who intends to set up a readymade garment unit, Dr. Sunny Khajurai, who wants to provide First Aid and Ambulance Services, Sahil Sharma, who wants to deal with sale and services of electric goods, Batinder, who intends to run a business of computer assembling, Vikramjeet, Sarfraz Ahmad, Ravi Kumar and Aanchal Badan, who are want to be involved in dairy farming, Rishab Arora, who intends to provide paying guest facilities, Shivani Sharma who wants to establish a play way school, Baljeet Singh Basheyan and Mohsin Rasheed are some of these youth whose DPRs are ready but the State government has stopped their dreams from taking flight.
Presently, the State is implementing 27 employment generation schemes including 12 schemes with 100 percent funding and six schemes with 90 percent funding from GoI while nine schemes are State government sponsored.
The State had introduced its first employment generating scheme ‘State’s Self Employment Scheme’ in 1972 and introduced ‘Seed Capital Fund Scheme’ in 2009 while ‘Youth Startup Loan Scheme’ was introduced in 2012.
However, the Self Employment Scheme was shelved in 2015.
EDI was helping the government not only identify youth who needed assistance in employment generation but also providing training to it in addition to providing the required funding to help kick start their projects.
According to EDI, the institute under its Seed Capital Fund Scheme benefitted 4768 entrepreneurs setting up 3723 enterprises by providing Rs 162.75 crore seed capital besides bank loans until January 31, 2016.
Under the Youth Startup Loan Scheme, Rs 39.45 crore were provided to 1980 enterprises until January 31, 2016 and under the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC), EDI provided soft loans to minorities in the age group of 18 years and 35 years and a total of Rs 51.81 crore were provided to the entrepreneurs under NMDFC until January 31, 2016.
EDI also implements the Himayat scheme, an initiative of Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, under which 18-day training is provided to aspiring entrepreneurs, who have passed 8th standard exams but dropped out of schools, following which their small business units are provided financial assistance upto Rs 4 lakh.
Talking to Rising Kashmir, Finance Minister, Haseeb Ahmad Drabu, who also holds the portfolio of Labour Ministry, said EDI was meant to provide training to the aspiring entrepreneurs not giving credit to them.
“A separate thing will come for that,” he said.
Drabu, who along with former union minister and a top Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, was one of the key figures in establishing EDI, said the government had not stopped the funding of the institution but was only reviewing its performance and working.
The finance minister said the government had to see the mortality rate of the loans provided and while EDI had to undergo a third party evaluation, it had carried its own survey to give itself a clean chit.
“With the amount of funds the government was pumping in EDI, we could have generated much more employment,” he said. “Even the SFC (State Financial Corporation) was not getting as much funds as EDI.”
Drabu said EDI had too many skeletons in its closet.
EDI came under militant attacks twice in 2016, first in February and then in October and the troops almost destroyed the entire building to neutralize the militants.
Opposition National Conference (NC) Working President and former chief minister, Omar Abdullah after the second attack tweeted, “All the EDI ever did was train young Kashmiri boys and girls to stand on their own feet and not seek government jobs but militants don’t like that.”
However, the institution survived with employees operating from other buildings but what may have existed after the two deadly militant attacks may not survive the State government’s stroke of pen of drying up its funds.