Jharkhand govt and SIS providing training to youth

Garhwa, Jharkhand, Aug 2 (UNI) The Jharkhand government and the Security and Intelligence Services Ltd (SIS), country's leading security service provider, are together imparting job-oriented training to the unemployed youth of four districts -- Garhwa, Lohardagga, Palamu, Latehar in a bid to wean them away from Naxalism.

State Welfare Minister Ramesh Singh Munda at a passing out parade of a batch of security guards at the SIS Central Training Academy here today said, ''We are committed to provide employment to the youth in the state, specially those living below the poverty line and backward castes to make them self sufficient and to help them join the mainstream and prevent them from taking the undesired route.'' ''The government may also consider imparting arms training, which was not provided to recruits right now, as it will improve their chances of getting a job,'' he added.

The initiative is a first of its kind in the private and public partnership and will also help in improving the overall security situation in the state, Mr Munda added.

The scheme will be extended to other districts of the state soon for which plans are under way.

The cost of training will be borne by the state government, which comes to about Rs 5000 per recruit, he added.

Special Secretary, Welfare, V C Nigam, who was also present on the occasion, said apart from helping the youth becoming security officers, the Ministry has also embarked upon various other programmes to help unemployed boys and girls get vocational training.

This is part of the government efforts to fight the naxalite menace and the state government has initiated talks with companies like Tata to also provide employment to the youth of these Naxal-hit districts and start more such private public partnerships.

The government will be spending Rs eight crore annually and apart from SIS, it has stated similar programmes with the Indo-Danish Tools Room, Jamshedpur and Women Polytechnics for their training, Mr Nigam said.

The recruits who will be passed out will get placements from SIS.

Forty-seven recruits passed out today and 90 will pass out on August 15. The agency has got 333 applications so far and will be training about 1500 youth this year under the scheme.

The state government has adopted a draft of its Relief and Rehabilitation policy which will be implemented soon. The government has attracted ire of industrialists, most prominently, L N Mittal of Mittal Steels for a ђlack of focusҒ. However, JSW, the flagship steel company of the Jindal group has pledged an investment of Rs 35000 crore in the state.

SIS was established in 1974 and the first public limited security company. It is providing security solutions to customers across 22 states in the country and is an ISO 9001-2001 company. The company has four training academies -- Garhwa, Dehradun, Gurgaon and Bangalore.

UNI YA AK RN1919