The government is planning to provide jobs to around 42,500 youths including women under the third phase of the National Service Programme (NSP).
Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan made the statement while briefing journalists after a scheduled cabinet meeting yesterday, where he added that the cabinet has also approved a proposal for the third phase of the NSP.
“The government has fixed a budget of Tk661 crore for the project which is part of the government’s 2008 election pledge of creating job opportunities.
“Under the programme, job opportunities will be created for around 42,500 unemployed youths in 17 upazilas of 17 districts,” Musharraf said.
The cabinet secretary added that applicants must have already passed their HSC exams and be at least 24-25 years old to be deemed qualified for the NSP jobs. Musharraf said the programme would start in January 2015 and continue until December 2017.
The NSP was first launched in March 2010 in three districts to provide necessary training and short-term services to educated male and female youths for capacity building to find jobs. At that time, the programme was implemented in 19 upazilas of Kurigram, Barguna and Gopalganj districts.
Under the programme, 56,801 male and female youths were given training and out of them 56,054 got jobs in the government service. Under the NSP a youth gets Tk100 everyday during the training period and Tk200 during the short-term service.
Jobs for around 16,036 unemployed were created in the second phase of the programme for youths from eight upazilas in Rangpur, Dinajpur, Panchagarh, Thakurgaon, Nilphamari, Gaibandha and Lalmonirhat.
The third phase will be implemented in 17 poverty-stricken upazilas of 17 districts, the cabinet secretary said, adding that the upazilas were selected on the basis of the poverty map of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
The upazilas are- Mehendiganj of Barisal, Gosairhat of Shariatpur, Dewanganj of Jamalpur, Nandail of Mymensingh, Kaokhali of Pirojpur, Haimchar of Chandpur, Sherpur Sadar, Shyamnagar of Satkhira, Nalchiti of Jhalakati, Mohammadpur of Magura, Goalanda of Rajbari, Chitalmari of Bagerhat, Chowhali of Sirajganj, Thanchi of Bandarban, Singda of Natore, Terkhada of Khulna and Monoharganj of Comilla.
Meeting sources said that in yesterday’s meeting, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury disagreed with the BBS survey, claiming that one target location – Sherpur sadar – should be changed as it was Sherpur’s Jhenaigati upazila that was the poorest area in the district.
