The lack of opportunities makes crime prevention more challenging. India needs YUVA-like initiatives to put its youth to productive purposes
Youth empowerment is the key to building an inclusive and vibrant India. In this backdrop, the YUVA initiative of the Delhi Police comes with a lot of promises, including long-term impact for the creation of a cohesive society. Youth are often vulnerable to bad practices when they drop out of schools. If they are left unattended, many of them can become a burden on society. And, therefore, there is a compelling need to make meaningful interventions so as to ensure they do not fall into the web of crime in any form or social dormancy. It is here that the role of positive initiatives, like YUVA, assumes significance.
In 2014, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge, the focus of his Government was on empowering the youth in more ways than one. Gradually, initiatives became institutionalised with an aim to enable them become employers and not only employees. One such scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), is dedicated to skill the youth of our country so that they become financially self-reliant.
The idea of YUVA is to achieve the goals set by the Government under its National Skill Development Mission. Given the magnitude of the challenge, the only viable option to provide jobs to all is to equip our youth with relevant skills, commensurate with the education they have gained. A number of Union Government schemes, such as Startup India, Make in India, Standup India and MUDRA Yojana, among others, seek to achieve the goal of building an inclusive India where there is no exclusion or discrimination in sharing opportunities among all. In the process, the importance of skill development and innovation factors in so significantly. The Government of India is precisely replicating what other countries, like China, South Korea, and Japan did decades back to make every hand of some gainful use. The rest is history today. Needless to say, we are late but a beginning has to be made.
As a stakeholder in building a new India, the Delhi Police is more than eager to play a pro-active role. YUVA is a fine case in point. This scheme is committed to equip the vulnerable youth, especially from the under-privileged sections of society, with skills and provide them gainful employment. The idea is to ‘catch them young’ and divert their energies towards productive avenues. This will, thus, save youth from getting caught in the world of crime. The programme leverages the opportunities of skill development available under the PMKVY. Not only does it seek to provide professional skill, but goes a step ahead to secure their placement, enabling them to carve a niche for themselves in the real world.
Though only over a year old, YUVA has made remarkable contribution in changing the life of many youth who were financially distressed and, thus, were prone to delinquency. It is a globally proven fact that lack of opportunities makes the task of crime prevention even more challenging. Therefore, YUVA-type initiatives have a bigger role to play for the long-term objective of crime prevention. They help integrate those marginalised sections, who in the absence of right opportunities at a critical time in their lives, evince high vulnerability to jump the fence and delve into the deleterious morass of crime and wrongdoing. “It is a matter of pride for the Delhi Police that YUVA — undertaken as a mission by us so far to train and skill youth who are financially distressed and, hence, prone to criminality — has successfully completed a landmark year and envisages bigger horizons in its second year,” said the Delhi Police Commissioner, Amulya Patnaik.
“The thought behind YUVA is to design a mechanism to bring together the youth of the capital, both boys and girls, from underprivileged sections of the society for skill development. This will lead to better employment opportunities so that they become role model for others,” said Devesh Chandra Srivastava, Joint Commissioner of Police, Delhi Police. Boys and girls, who have passed out from YUVA centres, have become role models for others with the larger objective of peaceful, harmonious living and better securing the national capital. The process of identifying young trainees — 17 to 25 years-old — and watching them grow into successful corporate executives as well as entrepreneurs has been a wonderful experience for all stakeholders, including the Delhi Police, which deeply believes in contributing to the care and concern for the disadvantaged sections of society.
It is worth stating here that at YUVA centres, the National Skill Development Corporation provides skill training to the youth, while the Confederation of Indian Industry gives job-related training through its sector skill councils that are connected to the industry and thereby provide job opportunities.
(The writer is a strategic communications professional)
