Creation of jobs is one of the major concerns for the State government specially, after the mining sector got hit which left several thousand jobless in Goa. Also, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has a task ahead to align and deliver to the Central government’s promise of creation of more jobs. The government is now planning to look out for industries which can create jobs and those are in pharma, IT, start-up, agriculture etc.
In his short annual statement of finance (budget) speech on February 22, the Chief Minister, also the finance minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar announced that the government has laid stress on generating local employment for which total provisions of Rs 548.89 crore in the sector of industry, labour and employment and information technology. In the total education sector, including medical education, a total of Rs 2445 crore have been made.
However, even before the government took a step, private players like Goa Technology Association, National Council of MSME, Goa Chambers of Commerce and Industries (GCCI), BNI and GEMS have already moved ahead and have organised several job and career fairs. In fact, these fairs and events have helped the government to get some data on it which will help them formulate better policies.
“The chief minister said his government has laid stress on generating rural employment, for which Rs 548.89 crore has been allocated under the heads of industry, labour and employment and information and technology. This investment in the rural area will help to bring about the revival of the slowing economy and help to raise the growth to that of urban areas. This is a welcome move to bring the educated youths in the main stream by giving them opportunity for employment as well as taking plunge to become entrepreneur,” said Manguirish Pai Raiker, chairman, National Council of MSME.
He further added that this would also help generate employment in the rural areas thereby reducing the pressure on the towns and cities. In the recently held job fares especially in the rural areas we found a number of educated youth looking for job openings with adequate training at their end. This well thought out measure in the budget for 2018 will definitely yield results not only to create jobs but also to bring life in the rural economy. There should be some provision also for the training of these rural youths in soft skills and communication skills.
“For every direct job created three opportunities appear in the allied or ancillary fields. This could be in transport, entertainment, supercentres, restaurants and the like. The whole village economy shows upward trend. I wholeheartedly welcome this direction of the Government and look forward to the finer print in the budget which will drive the economic growth,” added Mr Raiker.
At the recently held Goa Bizfest, BNI along with GEMS organised a career fair in which over 76 companies participated and about 1,717 job seekers bee-lined for enquiries on job opportunities.
“We worked hard and we did this along with the Labour Department of the Goa government. We are not connecting through emails to all these shortlisted candidates. One of our persons will actually be calling as a follow-up post the email by the Labour Department. It is just a starting point and we want to hit the finish line. We are also proposing to have a separate session on how to train people to face an interview. We plan to do this career fair at least twice a year,” said Rajkumar Kamat, executive director of BNI, Goa.
Similarly, for the first time in Goa, Goa Technology Association (GTA) in association with Padre Conceicao College of Engineering (PCCE) hosted a GTA Career Sprint recently. About 29 Goan IT companies conducted live on campus interviews. Around 395 students from all the five engineering colleges in Goa, namely Goa College of Engineering, Don Bosco College of Engineering, Shree Rayeshwar Institute of engineering, Agnel Institute of Technology and Design and Padre Conceicao College of Engineering participated in the job fair.
“I am very impressed by the budget allocated for the scaling of the IT Industry and the employment. Looks like ‘Bhai’ (Manohar Parrikar) has finally got the ball rolling and the upcoming IT Policy will be the cherry on the cake. ‘Acche Din Zaroor Aayenge’,” said Mangirish Salelkar, president, GTA.
