Anantnag, March 11: Pahalgam, known globally for its scenic beauty, lush green meadows and gushing white water of Lidder, is making news due to various youth centric development projects taking off. Most of the recent developments have been planned focusing on engagement of youth, enhancing their skills and providing meaningful self- employment opportunities.
The district administration, through various government schemes, has focused on socio economic development of Pahalgam aimed to engage youth in various economic activities so that the capital inflow due to tourism is infused towards local prosperity. The plan of development has focused on skill development of youth, so that they can leverage their skills for generating and engaging in meaningful employment. Parallel focus has been on development of infrastructure for efficient service delivery and use of ICT technology to provide doorstep delivery of services.
Pahalgam Homestays, the first of its kind initiative in UT of JK, under the Crown of Incredible India project, is collaboration between Govt. and OYO groups to capitalize on Pahalgam’s tourist potential and ensure youth participation so that the local economy can reap benefits of the initiative.
Under the initiative, young aspiring entrepreneurs are encouraged to convert a room or two in their houses into tourist accommodation in order to provide hospitality to the tourists visiting and staying in their homes during their stay in Pahalgam. For this purpose, the OYO, India’s best on-line hotel booking site will connect the homeowner with the tourists, who want to experience the life and culture of Pahalgam in its purest form.
More than 15 such homeowners already live on the online platform and several others are showing interest and eagerness in participating in the initiative particularly in town areas. The initiative not only will promote rural tourism but also generate new opportunities and hopes for the youth willing to associate themselves with this viable economic activity.
The need is that youth should fully understand the purpose and the benefits of the scheme, introduced by the Government for them and come forward and engage themselves in this viable economic activity. This will improve their economic plight thereby generating new hopes for their coming generations. Let us start with good hope.
Self-Employment Schemes
Several awareness camps were held to encourage youth to take up self-employment opportunities being provided by the Government. The Deputy Commissioner Anantnag personally interacted with various stakeholders including aspiring youth, banks and concerned departments to remove the bottlenecks hampering the sanction and disbursement of loan cases. 45 persons have been provided financial assistance under PMEGP for setting up walnut processing, shuttering units, chain stitching units, service centers, etc. Similarly, 11 cases have been sanctioned under the Mumkin scheme providing financial assistance to youth for purchase of commercial vehicles.
Tehsil Youth Library
A tehsil youth library is being constructed at a cost of Rs 1.93 crore by R&B Department at Pahalgam. Once the library is functional, books and reading material related to competitive exams will be made available and accessible to the youth willing to take part in local as well as national level job related or professional course competitions.
For the time being, Tehsildar Pahalgam hosts a group of 300 students in an online mode and counsels them about various competitive exams.
