Jammu, Feb 18: Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah Monday expressed satisfaction over the “popularity of SKEWPY" among educated youth, underlining the need for bringing the clearance process for launch of economic units under Public Service Guarantee Act (PSGA) to make it time bound and hassle-free.
 The chief minister was speaking at JKEDI, where the entrepreneurs who have established or are in the process of setting up economic units under SKEWPY shared their experiences.
 The chief minister said: “To make SKEWPY more productive, effective and fast track, it is essential that the issues regarding clearance of cases under SKEWPY are brought under PSGA.”
 He said that hassle-free clearance of cases and disbursement of loans in a time bound manner have to be ensured so that youth find level play field to venture upon.
 He said hand holding of entrepreneurs by all the concerned agencies is key to the progress and growth of SKEWPY.
 The Chief Minister said that SKEWPY provides for advancing of loans less than Rs 10 lakh without any mortgage or guarantee by entrepreneurs and similar initiative has been put in place by the Centre Government to encourage micro and small industrial sector and address unemployment problem.
 “There is need to drive this point home to the lower level bank officers by the Jammu and Kashmir Bank so that entrepreneurs are not asked for such requirements for the cases involving less than Rs. 10 lakh”, he said and directed the Jammu and Kashmir Bank authorities to educate their officials accordingly.
 The Chief Minister said that he would constitute a Committee of Secretaries to re-examine operational mechanism, scale of financing, expansion, enhancing of age limit and lowering of qualification for the youth intending to take advantage of SKEWPY so that its orbit is further expanded and more and more youth provided opportunity to earn their livelihood under this scheme.
 Minister for Planning and Development, Ajay Sadhotra in his speech highlighted the efficacy of SKEWPY.
 About 30 entrepreneurs from all parts of Jammu division spoke on the occasion and narrated their experiences and shared their thoughts with the Chief Minister and other dignitaries on the occasion.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:00:00 IST