UDAAN
Udaan, the Special Industry Initiative (SII) for Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is funded by Ministry of Home Affairs and implemented by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). The program is a part of the overall initiative for addressing economic issues in J&K. While steps are being taken by the State and Central Government to revive economic activity in J&K, Udaan program is a special initiative to address the needs of the educated unemployed youth in J&K.
Udaan program is focused on youth of J&K who are graduate, post graduate or three year diploma engineers. The aim is to provide skills and job opportunities to the youth. Simultaneously, the aim is also to provide exposure to corporate India towards the rich talent pool available in the state. The target was to reach out to 40,000 youth in J&K over a period of 6 years.
It was observed that the youth of J&K were unable to find employment in many companies mainly because of two reasons — either they were unaware of any opportunity in the companies or the companies were unaware of the talent pool that existed in the state. The principal focus of the Udaan program is to create an ecosystem that would bridge this gap. The Udaan program is designed to encourage corporate to travel to J&K, meet the youth and hire aspiring candidates who wish to explore the opportunity to work in corporate sector. Udaan provides a framework of support to the youth of the state to travel, train and transit to work.
Udaan has two objectives: