In a significant move, the government has dispensed with the condition requiring production of no objection certificate (NoC) from Deputy Director, Employment and General Manager, DIC for joining the Government Service by anyone in Jammu and Kashmir.
All government orders relating to appointments set out various stipulations as a condition precedent for joining in the most-sought after service in J&K.
Among others, anyone being appointed to the services was required to get certificates from the concerned Deputy Director, Employment and General Manager, DIC to the effect that no loan under self employment scheme has been taken by him or her.
The move, the government underlined, was taken as a vast number of youth do not take up self employment opportunities on offer in the various government sponsored or self employment schemes under which banks provide credit on easy terms or where subsidy is also available for setting up the businesses or trade as they believe that they may not be able to liquidate loan liabilities to become eligible for government employment in case they are subsequently selected,
This acted as a significant disincentive for them to take up self employment as a viable livelihood option under various schemes, besides adversely impacting the uptake of these schemes in J&K.
New conditions have been set now and provide that if the candidate has taken loan for self employment from DIC or Employment Department, the appointed shall relinquish the proprietorship of unit and enterprise and also stakes in such self-employment unit or enterprise before joining the government service.
Significantly he or she can repay the entire loan liability in suitable EMIs to be worked out by the drawing and disbursing authorities concerned from his or her salary.
A number of self employment schemes like Mission Youth, Rural Livelihood Mission, Himayat, PMEGP, Avsar, Tejaswani are being implemented for providing employment opportunities. MHA informed Lok Sabha during the Budget session that during the current financial year, 2,01,299 employments have been generated as on January 21 last through such schemes. This is besides 33,426 vacancies of Gazetted and Non-Gazetted categories identified out of which 25,450 filled up till December 2022, MHA said. The recruiting agencies have also advertised 7,976 vacancies for recruitment, it added.
While the step taken by the government is in right earnest, the administration should augment self employment avenues to create employability and create more and more awareness about the available scheme.
