J and K Rural Livelihoods Mission to create over 35,000 jobs in UT: Official

Under an initiative of the JKRLM known as 'SAATH', a rural enterprise acceleration programme for women launched by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, women entrepreneurs of rural areas will be mentored and capacity-building workshops will be organised for them to help upscale their business ventures, she said.

A total of 8,085 applicants from across Jammu and Kashmir have applied for the programme, Asgar said.

She added that 500 enterprises with the highest potential have been chosen for an intensive training programme to be followed by mentoring, while 5,000 entrepreneurs will be exposed to various business enablement strategies, including e-commerce sales and branding.

Asgar said 45 per cent of the applicants reported that given the right support, they can offer employment to over 27,000 rural women in a year, with an average of 7.5 potential jobs being created per rural enterprise when backed through SAATH.

The remaining 55 per cent of the applicants saw a new employment generation potential of around two persons per enterprise, taking the total employment potential to over 35,000 in J&K, she said.

These 8,000-odd SAATH programme applicants are employing approximately 12,000 employees at present, she added.