The central government has decided to bring UDAAN on Direct Benefit Transfer platform by linking it with Aadhaar to track down and monitor the candidates.
Udaan, the Special Industry Initiative (SII) for Jammu and Kashmir, is funded by Ministry of Home Affairs and implemented by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).
The programme 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 programme is a special initiative to address the needs of the educated unemployed in J&K.
The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) is expected to give its approval to the decision soon to enable monitoring and tracking of UDAAN candidates for two years.
Currently, tracking of candidates is being done only for three to six months, making that task difficult for the government to see the efficacy of the scheme.
“As per the latest decision no new candidate will be taken for training without Aadhaar seeding into their bank accounts,” sources said.
In order to make the scheme more engaging , CCEA is also expected to clear the proposal for introducing a stipend of Rs 6,000 for up to four months to the candidates who have completed training besides raising the on-training stipend from Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,000 per month per candidate.
Last year, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government had approved extending the UDAAN scheme for three years till 2019-20 without increasing any budgetary outlay for it as an expenditure of only Rs. 257.45 crore had taken place out of the total central share of Rs. 750 crore leaving an unspent amount of Rs. 492 crore.
The Centre plans to complete the target of 21,000 job offers in the next three years.
