JOIN USMuslim youths whose families hold ration cards in the city may soon get SMS alerts inviting them to join skill training courses at a new institute in Paharganj run by a central agency.
The training institute will send the alerts after getting the ration card holders’ data from the Delhi government’s Food and Supplies Department which regularly sends alerts to the ration card holders on arrival of wheat, rice and sugar at fair price shops.
For offering self-employment oriented training to minorities, Maulana Azad National Academy for Skills (MANAS) is looking to seek help from the Delhi government.
MANAS Chairman Dinesh Singh Bist said: “We are planning to use the ration department’s data to send information on our training courses.”
He said their initial focus would be to reach out to ration card holders in the 10 Assembly constituencies with over 20 per cent Muslim population and these areas include Seelampur, Okhla, Matia Mahal, Chandni Chowk, Babarpur, Kirari, Seemapuri, Ballimaran, Vikaspuri and Babarpur.
Information about the certificate courses would also be disseminated near madarsas and mosques for inviting more and more youths from the minority community, said the chief of MANAS, set up by the National Minority Development and Finance Corporation of the Union minority affairs ministry.
“Soon after the launch of the academy in November 2014, courses in general duty assistant (medical) and unarmed security guards were launched in and around Delhi for 350 candidates,” said Bist.
He added that the training modules have been conducted through private project implementing agencies in Nangloi and Bawana in Delhi and Loni and Gildhar in Ghaziabad district of UP.
The academy, based in Maulana Azad Bhawan on Chelmsford Road near New Delhi Railway Station charges nominal fees for entrepreneurship and skill development programmes of sewing machine operator, mobile phone and tablet repair, medical assistant, domestic data entry operator and beauty culture.
“The primary focus is on helping minority youths get self-employed. The ministry also offers concessional credit for the newly-trained entrepreneurs with family incomes ranging between Rs 1.03 lakh and Rs 6 lakh in urban areas like Delhi,” Bist said.
He said initially the training facility at MANAS is available for members of the Muslim community but gradually it will be extended to all other minorities like Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains.