Planning group to focus on agri, tourism sectors

Neena Sharma

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, July 30

Based on skill mapping undertaken by the Department of Labour and Employment, the Policy Planning Group led by former Chief Secretary Indu Kumar Pande has zeroed in on agriculture, horticulture, tourism and urban sectors for developing skills and promoting entrepreneurship among the youth in Uttarakhand.

Since the formation of the group early this year, it has been engaged in preparing a long-term plan for Uttarakhand and skill development has received special attention.

“With the help of skill mapping, we were able to get a complete picture of skills that our youth possess and then carry out need assessment in tune with our future requirement. So far, we have not upgraded our industrial training institutes, which continue to impart old courses which are not in sync with the needs of the state,” said Pande.

While the tourism sector will continue to be the main focus of the state, the group is in favour of imparting short-term courses for the youth which are high on employability. “We continue to have poorly trained staff. This kind of situation of unskilled youth should not persist for long. It will be detrimental to the development of the state. So, we suggested starting of short-term courses in the hospitality sector at government and private-run institutions,” said Pande.

The group says agro marketing and processing needs to be promoted.

“We need to have trained youth to work and expand our agriculture and dairy sectors. There is a need to engage our youth in developing hill agriculture implements. Such small units with local scope will help us improve our agriculture and horticulture prospects,” said Pande.

The group also envisages a huge potential in the urban sector and is of the view that it, too, needs to be given the desired attention. “We need to come up with master plans so that our cities have planned development. Along with attracting the attention of the planners, we need to set up professional institutions to train our youths in urban planning,” said Pande.

At the suggestion of the group, the government is likely to come up with a skill development policy that would incorporate the policy being implemented by the Jammu and Kashmir government and the National Skill Mission of the Modi government.