Malik Ashraf
PRIME Minister Imran Khan last Thursday inaugurated first phase of Rs.100 billion Kamyab Jawan Programme to support country’s youth through financial and technical assistance. The programme funded by UNDP envisages advancing of interest free loans up to one hundred thousand rupees among the weaker segments of the society in 45 less developed districts of the country. The other two categories included loans up to Rs.500000 and Rs.5 million. The youth will not only be provided money to start their own businesses but they would also be assisted through online feasibility studies carried out by the government to make their choices regarding the type of business they would like to undertake. The youth would also be provided skills education for which 100 smart laboratories will be established besides providing apprenticeship opportunities to 25000 youth in different industries and the establishment of 500 skills laboratories in the Madaris. The other hallmark of the programme is that women will have 25% quota in it.
The programme is an imaginative initiative which basically aims at encouraging entrepreneurship among youth. For promoting entrepreneurship it is important that the people with innovative ideas and skills have access to the vital entrepreneurial resources like money, talent and know-how to initiate new business, especially small and medium size enterprises which are less volatile and more stable than the big and mega industrial ventures due to their ability to provide bulk of the jobs in a country. One of the major objectives of the government and its economic managers is to ensure full employment in the country. Entrepreneurship serves as a channel for spill over of the knowledge acquired in one organization and becoming commercialized through innovative activity in a new startup. The new startups ensure that the costly inventions and creative ideas created in one industry or business concern are shared, commercialized and converted into innovative pursuits which not only revolutionize those industries but also spur economic growth, job creation and development of a competitive culture within the country. Countries like USA, Japan, Denmark and Taiwan are quintessential of the role that entrepreneurship can play in the economic development of a country. In Pakistan the government employs only 7-8% of the labour force. So like all other nations the only option available to it is to nudge economic activity in the private sector through encouraging entrepreneurship in regards to the establishment of small and medium size businesses and industry by making available necessary resources and technical know-how to the youth entering the labour market.
In the past several initiatives were taken in the public sector to nudge small and medium size business in the form of loans to the youth but unfortunately they all failed to create the desired impact due to the rampant corruption in the public organizations. The parties in power actually showed favours on their own political workers and in most of the cases loans were advanced on fake documents without proper collateral and on the basis of political influence. The result was that billions of rupees were lost to this plunder. The other reason for failure of those efforts was that the basic ingredients of entrepreneurship like the technical know-how and talent to start a business were totally neglected while advancing loans. There was no support available in the public sector for carrying out research and preparing feasibility reports in regards to different lines of business and industry. The Youth Investment Programme started during the regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Small Business Finance Corporation had to be abandoned due to their failure to achieve the desired objectives.
The PML (N) government also launched Prime Minister’s Youth Programme in September 2013; a package comprising Youth Business Loan Scheme, Youth Skill Development Programme, Youth Training Programme, Scheme for provision of laptops, Interest Free loan Scheme and Fee Re-imbursement Scheme for Less Developed Areas. The programme actually did not achieve the desired targets due to the cumbersome procedures involved in obtaining loans from the banks though under the skill development proramme thousands of youth received training in different skills.
The programme launched by the PTI government is certainly a better initiative than the one launched by the PML (N) government. While the money made available for the schemes initiated by the PML (N) government was provided by the private and government banks (internal resources) the money for the programme launched by the PTI government is being provided by the UNDP and not from the tax payers money.
The second thing is that it is based on merit and transparency and will be monitored by the Prime Minister himself which indicates the importance that the government attaches to the success of this programme. Another pertinent point to be mentioned is that the government also envisages introduction of a uniform syllabus and system of education in the country from the next year which will help in narrowing down the disparities that exist among the three education systems prevalent in the country at the moment. Yet another objective of the initiative is to mainstream the students of the Madaris by providing them technical education and enhancing their chances of employment in the job market. One cannot take an issue with the concept and the envisioned results of the programme but it would surely depend on its implementation in letter and spirit unlike the previous initiatives. If population to get good opportunities of employment, economic empowerment, acquiring skills needed for gainful.
— The writer is freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
