Andhra Pradesh - Guntur   

One STEP closer to a better life

Staff Reporter

Unemployed youths make the most of a skill-training programme

GUNTUR : Born into an impoverished agricultural family, for 18-year-old M. Meena Kumari, a native of Tenali, toiling the whole day on the paddy fields to make both ends meet, was the only way of life till recently.

She was forced to drop out of college and work in a paddy field. A chance meeting with her uncle last December, who showed her a newspaper advertisement for a training programme for various skills offered by the Department of Youth Affairs changed her life. She enrolled herself in the three-month computer course and was placed in one job consultancy firm in Guntur, Zinc Online, as a tally operator .

Wide range

She was not alone. Of the 150 unemployed youth, most of them college dropouts, enrolled in the computer course training programme, in collaboration with NIIT, 57 youth were placed in various firms as data entry operators, tally operators and marketing executives with their starting salaries ranging from Rs.1,500 to Rs.10,000. "Of the 1500 youth who were trained in various programmes, 920 were placed," Society for Training Promotion and Employment Programme (STEP) chief executive officer V. Mark told media persons here on Tuesday.

The Department of Youth Welfare has tied up with various government and private firms to provide free training in various development programmes in fashion designing, call centre training etc. The State Government had paid Rs.2,500 to the training firms for each candidate.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

One STEP closer to a better life
Decision to ban students with low attendence flayed
Woman found hanging

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu