Hundreds of youth flock to job fair in Bengaluru

About 6,000 youth, including young women, thronged the Skill and Job Fair -2018 at the National College grounds in this tech hub on Saturday, with a fond hope of securing a worthy job in commensurate with their qualifications.

Armed with certificates, degrees and relevant documents, the prospective candidates from across Karnataka queued up for spot registration and orientation and selection on Sunday.

"All those candidates who had submitted applications at the Janata Darshan of the Chief Minister at his home-office early this month were also given orientation for selection by the companies participating in the fair," an official told IANS here.

Organised by the state government in association with the departments of labour, industrial training and employment, the two-day job fair is held for all the youth who have passed higher secondary school, pre-university course, diploma from polytechnics and industrial training institutes, degree and post-graduate colleges across the state.

"We are offering about 10,000 jobs to the educated youth in private and public sector firms across verticals, including manufacturing, services and allied industries," said the official.

Job seekers unable to attend the fair, can also register online at www.kaushalkar.com.

"To ensure jobs for all, we have tied up with corporates, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), industrial bodies and skilling centres to participate in the job fair (udyog mela)," added the official.

Inaugurating the fair, state Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy told the youth that the state government would offer loans ranging from Rs 1,000-10,000 for those youth who like to be self-employed or become entrepreneurs.

"We will soon launch a mobile banking facility in cities and towns across state to provide loans to the educated unemployed youth to start any business or enterprise and earn," Kumaraswamy told the gathering.

Asserting that the JD-S-Congress coalition government was committed to create job opportunities to the youth, including women, the Chief Minister said he made budgetary allocation to create industrial clusters in 19 districts across the state.

"We have set up a vision group with 43 companies to generate at least one-lakh jobs in each district over the next 5 years across the verticals.

As part of the budget, we have aimed to create cluster groups in 19 districts. We have created a vision group, with 43 companies as part of it. The group aims to create at least 1 lakh jobs in each of the 19 districts.

Kumaraswamy, who also holds the finance portfolio, allotted Rs 2,000 crore for each cluster as the state support in the form of equity.

"We hope the industry will come forward and invest Rs 3,000 crore in each cluster to create lakhs of jobs for our youth over the next 4-5 years," added the official.

The state government has allocated Rs 500 crore for skill development programmes and vocational training in each cluster across verticals.

The state government has identified 9 districts across the state to foster innovation and product diversification. Manufacturing units and assembling facilities will be set up in each of the district for specific products.

--IANS

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