9
SRINAGAR, July 17: All Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Conference (AJKPC)—a frontline body of elected PRI members—on Sunday urged the Government of India and the UT administration for devising a comprehensive strategy to start Panchayat tourism or rural tourism to address the gigantic problem of unemployment in Kashmir Valley.
On the concluding day of his two-week-long visit of Kashmir region, the UT president of AJKPC Anil Sharma chaired a meeting of BDC members, Sarpanches and Panches of different districts and gave a brief account of his tour to different districts.
Sharma said that the AJKPC team visited five districts–Shopian, Pulwama Anantnag Ganderbal and Srinagar—of Kashmir Valley and held detailed interactions with BDC members, Sarpanches, Panches and youths of Kashmir Valley.
“It has come to fore that the unemployment among youth has become the major problem and there is the urgent need to address this issue with some positive results. The BDC members, Sarpanches and Panches have favoured the start of Panchayat tourism or rural tourism to strengthen the rural economy so that youths are able to generate job opportunities in their respective villages,” Sharma said.
He said the Government of India should take immediate measures to start rural tourism while taking Panchayat bodies into confidence so the energy of youth in Kashmir is channelized in the right direction.
The AJKPC leader further said that the PRI members also suggested strengthening the mechanism of small scale industries in rural pockets of Kashmir Valley for increasing better job opportunities for youths.
“The government should encourage the youths to set up juice processing units at the local level in Kashmir Valley which is the leading producer of apple fruit. For this, the government should provide 90 percent subsidy to youths and their contribution should be reduced to just 10 percent. It will encourage the youths to start their own ventures which, in turn, will help in creating more job avenues for them,” Sharma said.