The Rural Development department has already empanelled around 40 renowned institutes and companies for the said purpose. Around 50 more companies will be required to provide high quality vocational training to the BPL youth.

Soon after coming to power, Chief Minister Mayawati had declared that the unemployment allowance scheme launched during Mulayam Singh’s regime was not feasible. Later, she announced that the government would rather provide jobs than an unemployment allowance.

In the preliminary phase, around 1,000 BPL youths of the state are already being trained by around six private and semi-government companies and institutes, which includes companies like Larsen and Toubro Ltd, NIIT, Educomp Solutions Ltd and G4S security systems.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the state government, these companies and institutes have to give an undertaking of facilitating 75 per cent placement of the trained youth with a remuneration not less than Rs 2,500 per month.

“Under the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana scheme, we were giving Rs 5,000 for the training and the placement of the rural BPL youth. But this training was provided in just the state-run institution, which did not help them much,” Manoj Kumar Singh, Commissioner, Rural Development Department.

“We thought that since we were already spending Rs 5,000, it is better that we use it in a better manner and them with adequate training,” he added.

“The idea is to bridge the gap between the recruitment process of the big companies and the eligible rural youth. The response in the preliminary phase is very encouraging,” said Singh. “Under the scheme, around 100 BPL youth from the state are being trained by L&T in their Delhi office and similarly by another five other institutes. Educomp has come forward to provide English and computer training as well.”

The selection of the candidates under the scheme has to be done district-wise and each District Magistrate as well as Chief Development Officers have been informed about the 40 empanelled companies and has been asked to provide the BPL list to the companies.