As many as 25 youths from SC/ST communities in the Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD) had a briefing session with senior officials of the SC/ST Development and Finance Cooperative Corporation recently to understand the various Government schemes for the underprivileged groups to enhance their quality of life. It was organised under the Socially Smart Bhubaneswar initiative, supported by Bhubaneswar Smart City limited (BSCl) and UNFPA India. Social sector organisation Humara Bachpan has been roped in as the implementing partner for this initiative. Under initiative, efforts are being made to bridge the information gap between the needy youths and Government schemes and programmes.
During their meeting, the youth representatives were given on-the-spot know-how on different programmes and schemes of the State Government for SC/ST youths. The city authorities plan to scale up such interactions in future covering youths from other slum areas of the city. The youths were briefed on how to obtain caste certificates and get prepared for availing such beneficial schemes and how they could avail the benefits such as scholarships and skill development programmes offered by the State Government.
As many of the youths, who attended were school drop-outs, they were shared the details on how they can benefit from the residential training programme provided by the State Government in vocational trades such as plumbing, fitter training, security guard training, multipurpose health worker training and computer training etc.
They were advised not to get concerned at the less amount of salary in the beginning.
As the Finance Cooperative Corporation is slated to enrol trainees in September, the plan is to hold meetings in different slums of the city, brief them on the available schemes / benefits and get the documents ready for eligible persons so that they can apply in time and take the benefit.
A couple of the youths who were studying at city-based Ekamra College and Maharishi College expressed happiness on being informed about the application process in details. They have decided to take it up with their parents to obtain caste certificate so that they can avail the scholarships.