Since 2019, the government of J&K has taken several steps to create employment opportunities for Kashmiri youth, including the implementation of self-employment schemes in various sectors to set up sustainable income-producing enterprises. Between August 2019 and December 2022, the government sector filled 31,830 job vacancies in the Union Territory, including vacancies in J&K bank. Various other measures have been taken to create employment for the unemployment youth in the UT. A total of 7.4 lakh self-employment and livelihood opportunities were created or reinforced in the state since the budget 2021-22 and until December 6, 2022.
The government has introduced new initiatives like Mumkin, Tejaswani, and spurring entrepreneurship under mission youth to facilitate the setting up of business units as well as sustainable livelihood projects for the unemployed youth, especially in the transport industry. Job fair and placement drives have been organized at divisional level and district level to create a platform for the unemployed youth and the potential employers, leading to increased job placement opportunities in the state over the past two years. The job fairs have been held at the divisional level with 1631 companies participating in 151 job fairs.
Various Skill Development Programs are proposed for FY 2023-24 to address the skill gap among the youth. During the year 2020 to October 2023, 4.74.464 candidates actively participated in career counseling sessions and 2.12.109 candidates took part in awareness campaigns on career guidance. Governance reforms were implemented and large-scale recruitment campaigns were conducted in the post-reorganization period. Public sector recruitment was overseen by the Accelerated Recruitment Committee set up in 2020. The “Yogyaata Se Rozgar” initiative focused on merit-based selection in a transparent, equal and fair manner. In order to improve transparency and speed up the recruitment process, all interviews up to and including pay level 5 and some in pay level 6 were eliminated.