Banks operating in J-K fail to saturate self-employment

SRINAGAR — The Government of Jammu and Kashmir has been pining hope for different financial institutions to bring down the unemployment rate to its lowest. Employment generation is the major challenge the government is facing right now in Jammu and Kashmir.

Official sources told the news agency KNT that to address the issue of grave unemployment, the government is pinning hope on different banks operating in the erstwhile state. They said banks have miserably failed to saturate self-employment to curb the issue of unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir.

One of the officials said that both the banks and government departments have failed to educate people about the benefits of schemes meant for employment generation. “Awareness is very important but that has not been so as it should be,” he said.

Besides, when one goes through the official records, it becomes clear that banks operating in Jammu and Kashmir have also failed to improve lending in the Priority Sector, which has remained sub-optimal, much to the displeasure of the government.

Recently, Chief Secretary Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta in one of his addresses claimed that the government is committed to bringing down unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir to below 5% and for this, banks need to put a well-drilled mechanism for saturating self-employment.

He, however, applauded the efforts made by J&K Bank in providing coverage and credit to people under various employment generation schemes and urged other banks to follow suit.