Government-sponsored initiative to support the academically-challenged tribal community in J&K

By Poviet Kaur

Srinagar, May 10: To be the first government-sponsored initiative to support the academically-challenged tribal community students in the high-profile aviation, hospitality, media and IT in Jammu and Kashmir, the Tribal Affairs Department of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir has initiated the process to select and sponsor 250 students at various levels for skill development courses in different fields of employment opportunities.

These include training and license for commercial pilots, air hostess/cabin crew, medical diagnostics, Information Technology (IT) and Information Technology enabled services (ITeS), nursing and journalism.

Secretary Tribal Affairs Department, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary said that the skill development training landscape needed to be reoriented with emergent requirements and employment markets.

The aviation sector, is a fast growing field facing acute shortage of commercial pilots and flight staff particularly in South Asia which is a great employment opportunity for skilled and trained youths for which annual batch of 10 commercial pilots and 20 cabin crew members will be sponsored by the Department, he added.

The new skill development courses will be launched within a month calling applications from students having requisite qualification and interest in the subject fields. He asked the youths to come forward with their areas of interests for which they need support from the department.

The new courses have been proposed on the 90:10 formula with 90% course fee to be sponsored by the Tribal Affairs Department and 10% student contribution which would also be offered as student loan.

The Department will be launching a host of various courses for which scholarship will be provided to undergo professional degrees and diploma courses. All these courses will begin from the current year academic session.

The project of sponsoring young boys and girls from tribal areas for training in aviation and hospitality is the brainchild of the young Indian Administrative Service officer Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, who himself is a Gujjar from Rajouri district and has recently joined as Secretary Tribal Affairs in the Jammu and Kashmir Government- (KNO)