In order to curb unemployment, the Karnataka government recently launched an app which, it hopes, will help the youth in the state get jobs.
The Kaushalkar website and app, both part of the Kaushalkar initiative of the state, aim to provide employment to over 5 lakh people, in both government and private sectors, by 2018.
Men and women, between the ages of 18 and 35, can apply for vocational training in the field they think they are best suited for.
Kaushalkar is an initiative of the Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood (SDEL) department which in turn is part of the Department of Employment and Training (DET).
"SDEL was created in December 2016 in order to increase the skill sets and employability of the youth in Karnataka. With a growing youth population in the country and high levels of illiteracy, there is a lot of unemployed people wasting away their talents. It is up to us to help them. Through this initiative, we can provide them with basic training which will fetch them jobs and help them support themselves as well as their families," said Ashraful Hasan, Director of DDET.
Image source: www.kaushalkar.com
The app will soon be linked with customers’ Aadhar numbers. "Once someone is trained in a particular sector, we see to it that you will have a job. This will be done with the help of the Aadhar numbers," Hasan added.
According to the 2015-16 Economic Survey of Karnataka, the unemployment rate in Karnataka - urban and rural combined - stands at 1.7%, which is less than half the national rate of 3.4%. Citing these statistics, Hasan said that the government is striving to bring cent percent employment in the state.
The app was launched on Google Play and the website is a mobile one.
"There is no limit to the number or type of vocation provided on this platform. The applicants are free to put whichever skill they choose to be proficient in and we will try our best to help them. If there are too few of them for a particular skill, we will send them to other training camps and maybe even foot the bill if that is possible," Hasan said.
"We want this interface to be as user friendly as possible. This is why the app and website has information in both Kannada and English," he added.