Srinagar, May 19: In a major initiative aimed at harnessing the potential of the youth and creating a unified ecosystem for their engagement, empowerment and development an ambitious Youth Empowerment Programme (YEP) is set to be rolled out soon by the Planning Development & Monitoring Department (PD&MD) across the districts of J&K.
The implementation of the programme was on Tuesday reviewed by the Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo in a meeting attended by Principal Secretary, Home; Principal Secretary, Culture; Commissioner Secretary, Planning; Commissioner Secretary, GAD; Commissioner Secretary, School and Higher Education Departments; Commissioner Secretary, YS&S; Secretary, RDD; Secretary, SDD; Secretary, Floriculture; MD, HADP; Director, EDI and Special Secretary, Planning (Nodal Officer YEP) along with other concerned officers.
Divisional Commissioner, Jammu/Kashmir and Deputy Commissioners attended the meeting through video conferencing.
During the presentation, Chief Secretary took a first-hand appraisal of the YEP portal presently under development and reviewed in detail the range of services proposed to be offered to the registered youth through the platform. He appreciated the department for first time creating a robust and interactive platform for the youth of the UT.
He also reviewed the dedicated interface developed for departments and Deputy Commissioners, including the workflow mechanism for creation of action plans, approval processes, uploading of events and documentation of activities through photographs and videos on the portal.
The initiative, as elucidated by Commissioner Secretary, PD&MD, R. Alice Vaz is first-of-its-kind integrated digital platform designed to connect the youth of this region with different career opportunities, services, counselling, skill development and participatory governance for their empowerment irrespective of their social, economic or geographical background.
She further added that the programme envisions creating a comprehensive framework for empowering youth in the age group of 15 to 35 years across all the 20 districts of Jammu & Kashmir by integrating the schemes and services of more than 18 government departments onto a single platform to ensure convergence, transparency, efficiency and targeted outreach during the tenure of this mega orientation programme.
In the presentation by Nodal Officer, Dr Owais Ahmad it was highlighted that once registered on the portal, the youth would gain access to a tailored list of dozens of government schemes, programmes and opportunities based on the outcome of their psychometric assessment tests. The system has been designed to map the aptitude, interests and aspirations of the youth and accordingly recommend suitable interventions, career pathways and developmental programmes.
It was further highlighted that the programme would channelise the energies of youth towards constructive nation-building and community-development activities by encouraging their active participation in social service campaigns, awareness drives and community participation initiatives including the Nasha Mukt J&K Abhiyaan. The initiative aims to create socially responsible youth leadership committed towards uplifting society and improving the quality of life in urban as well as rural areas across Jammu & Kashmir.
Additionally, the platform would provide AI-enabled chatbot support through the YEP Assistant, an intelligent guidance and counselling mechanism designed to assist youth in addressing specific issues and challenges faced by them. The AI-based assistant would provide guidance, counselling, mentoring and handholding support system in multiple languages to youth while helping them access appropriate schemes, services, career opportunities and wellbeing interventions.
The meeting was further informed that Application Programming Interface (API) integration with multiple schemes and services has already been incorporated into the YEP portal, enabling eligible youth to apply online for various schemes and programmes directly through the platform without the need for separate registrations on different departmental portals.
The programme also includes the development of a dedicated mobile application for both Android and iOS platforms, enabling youth and officials alike to access services, events, counselling, certificates and dashboards on the go. The mobile application is being developed with offline functionality and feature parity with the main portal to facilitate seamless field operations and youth participation even in remote areas.
The immediate roadmap for implementation includes completion of security audits, OTP integration, onboarding of departments and districts, creation of a Programme Management Unit (PMU), capacity building of stakeholders and phased rollout of pending modules. Future phases of the programme would focus on DigiLocker integration, onboarding of additional departmental databases, advanced analytics, predictive modelling and AI-driven enhancements.
The meeting emphasized that the Youth Empowerment Programme would emerge as a landmark initiative in shaping a unified, technology-driven and inclusive youth development framework for Jammu & Kashmir by creating “One Platform, One Generation, One State” for the youth of the Union Territory.
