ISLAMABAD: The government, in an effort to tap the untapped resource of the country available in the form of 68 per cent youth, has been working on establishing a comprehensive national database to determine socio-economic status of youth. The National Youth Development Index will be developed within the current calendar year (2020) which eventually will help the federal government in drafting legislation for the development of youth, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Youth Affairs Muhammad Usman Dar stated. He said initially, a survey would be conducted at the provincial levels to analyze the challenges faced by youth including educational issues, health problems, employment status and social dilemmas. Later, the project would be extended to the district level to evaluate the initiatives taken by the departments concerned for the betterment of youth. Highlighting the major challenge confronted by the young people at the moment, Usman said a big chunk of youth was looking for the jobs in public and private sectors. “Unfortunately, we have very less number of youth that prefer to start their own businesses. He urged the youth to come out of what he termed as a typical job-seeking mindset and said that the government had taken a number of initiatives for their grooming through provision of professional trainings and concessionary loans. Usman Dar said the government’s Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES) received an overwhelming response as some 1.3 million people applied for availing the soft loans. Contrary, only 55,000 youth applied for the recently launched Hunarmand Pakistan- the largest-ever skill development programme. He said the statistics at the YES indicated that only 0.2 million youth would be able to get the loans as most of the applicants did not come up with comprehensive plans, urging the youngsters to visit the Kamyab Jawan official website to get some help from some 200 feasibilities of different trades placed on it. “I want to assure the youth that the allocated money (Rs 1 billion) belongs to them and will be disbursed among the successful applicants.†The special assistant said the government was all set to launch four more initiatives under its Kamyab Jawan Programme to create extensive jobs opportunities in the current year. The remaining initiatives under Kamyab Jawan Programme included Start-up Pakistan, Green Youth Movement, National Internship Programme and Kamyab Jawan Sehatmand Programme. He said all the programmes had been worked out by the National Skills Strategy Task Force, formed by the prime minister, after thorough consultations. Usman said all the initiatives under Kamyab Jawan Programme would be rolled out in 2020 and most of them would be in implementation stage within this year. The core Agenda of Kamyab Jawan Programme is job creation for youth through promotion of entrepreneurship culture, provision of quality professional trainings and easy access to soft loans,†he said. The socio-economic well-being of youth was the greatest concern of Prime Minister Imran Khan that was why he launched the Kamyab jawan Programme and allocated billions of rupees for it, he added.
