Pandit body rolls out web portal for jobless youth

Sumit Hakhoo

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 19

For the first time in 27 years, a displaced Kashmiri Pandit organisation is making a list of unemployed people who have crossed the age limit to apply for jobs under the Prime Minister Employment package.

The Youth All-India Kashmiri Samaj (YAIKS) has started a web portal to gather the data of people who could not pursue their studies or had to leave their education midway after the exodus of 3.5 lakh Pandits in 1989-90.

The organisation wants to help the community get soft loans that have been denied to the Pandits under various government schemes for being “migrants” in official documents.

“Our aim is to gather data and submit it to the government, so that these people can get help under different employment schemes to establish their own business. Many Pandits are not able to get the benefits of various schemes introduced by the government,” said RK Bhat, president, YAIKS.

About 375 youth have registered in the last four days since the web portal was launched and the organisation has widely circulated the message through social networking sites like WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter.

People who were in the age group of 10-16 years when the migration started in 1990 were the worst victims of militancy and thousands of them could not pursue their higher education.

Thousands of school and college students belonging to the Pandit community struggled to get education after the exodus. Though the government opened camp schools in the 90s, many were not able to complete their education.

“It took me five years to complete my graduation from the Kashmir University in 1990 after migration. Because of militancy, exams were never held on time. I also could not compete in various competitive exams. There are hundreds of such cases,” said Sunil Dhar, who runs a shop at Muthi.

About seven camp schools were established in Jammu to adjust thousands of students and teachers belonging to the community. In the initial years, these institutions lacked the facilities of laboratory and library.

Soft loans for ‘migrants’

• The Youth All-India Kashmiri Samaj has started a website to gather the data of people who could not pursue their studies or had to leave their education midway after the exodus of 3.5 lakh Pandits in 1989-90
• The organisation wants to help the community get soft loans that have been denied to the Pandits under various government schemes for being “migrants” in official documents