Changes in New Youth Policy- 2014 The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Youth Affairs & Sports, Shri Sarbananda Sonowal has said that the National Youth Policy, 2014 (NYP-2014) was developed after an elaborate process of consultations with all stakeholders. Major points of difference between NYP-2014 and its previous counterpart, namely, National Youth Policy, 2003 (NYP-2003) and the mechanism recommended for monitoring and evaluation of the Policy (which itself is a point of difference) are as follows: The NYP-2014 identifies 5 precise Objectives and 11 specific Priority Areas requiring action for achieving those objectives. The distinguishing feature of NYP-2014 (vis-?-vis NYP-2003) is that under NYP-2014, specific actionable policy interventions have been suggested in each of the 11 priority areas. NYP-2003 identified 7 sectors of youth concern and covered them in very general terms. In NYP-2014, certain new priority areas have been brought into focus, which were not adequately addressed in NYP-2003. For instance, participation of youth in politics and governance and youth engagement have been identified as new priority areas. Similarly, NYP-2014 lays much greater emphasis on skill development, employment and entrepreneurship consistent with the needs to effectively utilise the youth as productive force. The youth age-group in the NYP-2003 was 13-35 years whereas it has been revised to 15-29 years in NYP-2014 to provide more focused approach to youth development and empowerment. The NYP-2014 lays a lot of emphasis on Monitoring and Evaluation? aspect, to ensure that the Policy gets effectively implemented. The Policy suggests specific Leading (short-term) and Lagging (long-term) Performance Indicators for measuring success of the Policy. The Policy Document also prescribes that the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports shall publish a Status of the Youth Report every 2 years. There is a provision for Review of the Policy after 5 years. The Policy also recommends that the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports should set up a Youth Advisory Council of exceptional yet representative individuals and that council can provide more detailed inputs to government on key policy issues, run programmes to mobilise youth and engage more regularly with diverse segments of the youth.? In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today the Minister said, Accordingly, a proposal to constitute a National Youth Advisory Council under the chairmanship of Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports is under consideration. It is proposed that the Council will have representation from official as well as non-official stakeholders and its terms of reference will include (i) to deliberate upon and review the programmes/ initiatives of various Ministries/ Departments for development and empowerment of youth and advise the Ministries/ Departments for more effective implementation of such programmes/ initiatives, (ii) to monitor the implementation of the Action Plan for implementation of the National Youth Policy and (iii) to advise the Ministries/ Departments on innovative schemes/ programmes/ initiatives that could be taken up for development and empowerment of the youth.
