'Centre to modernise employment exchanges with Rs 380 cr'

Hyderabad, Oct 20: The NDA government will spend Rs 380 core to give a facelift to 100 employment exchanges and transform them as national career counselling centres this year, Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said here today. "Employment exchanges will no longer be functioning as mere employment exchange centres.

There are 980 exchanges in the country, out of which 100 will be modernised in the first phase with Rs 380 crore investment this year," the Minister of State for Labour and Employment told reporters.

Dattatreya, speaking on the sidelines of a programme organised by a bank here, said there are four crore people registered with various employment across all the exchanges. These modern centres will have the database of employment seekers as well as job providers. "We have asked all the state governments to give us the proposals.

We are giving three centres each to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh," Dattatreya said. In June this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the NCS portal as part of the Centre's endeavour to modernise all government-run employment exchanges.

The NCS portal, set up under the National Career Service project, will function as hand-holding agencies for job-seekers. With a network of career counsellors, the portal will help job-seekers and provide a variety of other services on the NCS portal such as information on skill development courses, apprenticeship and internship among others.

According to the minister, the NCS has a base of over two crore job-seekers and nine lakh job providers.

PTI