Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 20

The Pehal Resource Centre will collaborate with the Vocational Rehabilitation Centre Ludhiana to set up a nodal centre for employment and skill development under the Centre’s National Career Service Scheme (NCSS), initiated by the Ministry of Labour and Employment. The centre will be set up inside the GNDU and will also be the in Punjab under the NCSS. It will be clubbed with the university employment information bureau. It will also serve as the region’s only employment exchange for the physically and the intellectually challenged. The project has been titled Umeed.

Its focus will be on training, skill development, internships and offering vocational training courses in technical and non-technical fields to the youth.

“We will serve as single platform for arranging jobs fairs, counselling youth and giving them job placements through network of promoters. We will also serve as facilitators for getting loans for establishing small-scale business and start ups. As many as 103 such centres will be opened across the country,” said centre operations officer Rahul.

Till date, the centre has registered 750 youngsters, including 125 with physical and intellectual disabilities, for the programme. The regional centre will also collaborate with employment exchanges across the six districts to gather data and document records.

The National Career Service Scheme caters not just to youngsters seeking jobs, but also provides guidance and counseling to illiterate/underprivileged individuals, ex-servicemen, senior citizens and professionals.

Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan and Pehal Resource Centre co-ordinator Dharminder Gill said initially the programme would specifically target youth with disabilities by forming self-help groups and rehabilitation.

He said, “We will offer courses in handicrafts and manufacturing units for the intellectually challenged, for which self-help group will be created. Deputy Commissioner will be the head of the committee. The nodal employment centre will provide job information in daily wage sector too.”

“Each youth member will be registered online and his/her profile will be directly documented on the website of national career service’s online page. It will be an encouragement for disabled youngsters, as no specified data is currently available to ensure a career for them,” he added.

For vocational rehabilitation training, infrastructure support would be given to Pehal to identify 93 persons with disability. Intellectual disabled will be selected for non technical courses like paper and jute bag making, pot making, decorative items, packaging, beauty industry and more. For physically disabled, visually impaired or hearing impaired, technical courses in computer, electrical/mechanical will be provided. All courses are certified by Government of India.

Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/cities/amritsar/-project-umeed-to-provide-job-avenues-to-disabled/339773.html