Youth empowerment policy soon: Naidu

The state government will soon come out with a new youth empowerment policy based on the feedback and recommendations by the four-day Youth Employment Summit (YES) that began here on Sunday.

Announcing this at the inaugural ceremony of YES, the chief minister, N Chandrababu Naidu, said that the proposed youth empowerment policy would be implemented as a model for th rest of the world to emulate the agenda and the practice.

"I am a strong believer in youth power. We can do wonders in future, if the power of youth is tapped for the betterment of the society. Skilled employment is so important that the ultimate goal of eradicating poverty is solely dependent on employing and empowering the youth as they are the biggest asset the country has," he said.

The chief minister stated that the education policy would also be reoriented to suit the needs in the present environment. " India will become the back office for the rest of the world as Indian human resources are cost-effective when compared to other countries," he said.

Naidu also expressed his willingness to provide more incentives to the youth under the self-employment programmes including interest subsidies.

He quoted Swami Vivekananda that, "all power is within you. You can do anything and everything. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders and know that you are the creator of your own destiny."

Sahib Singh Verma, the union minister for labour, who was the chief guest at the function, said that India was lacking in capacity-building and skill development among the youth when compared to other countries.

"To overcome this drawback, the central government is planning to create National Skill Development Fund very soon," he informed.

Saying that the government jobs were no solution to unemployment problem, Verma said that self-employment and employment in other sectors were the largest contributors in eliminating the unemployment problem.

In his keynote address, Hafiz Pasha, the assistant secretary-general of United Nations, opined that action plans should be chalked out for creating employment for the youth. "Creating decent employment for youth should be one of the key targets of all nations," he said.

Naina Lal Kidwai, the vice-chairman and managing director of HSBC, said India should utilise the business process outsourcing (BPO) opportunities coming from the developed world to create wealth as well as employment to the youth.