Chief Secretary reviews progress on Mission YUVA to boost entrepreneurship

Srinagar, Aug 7: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, Thursday had a comprehensive review of youth empowerment program, Mission YUVA (Yuva Udyami Vikas Abhiyan), initiated in J&K with the vision of establishing the region as a thriving hub for enterprises and holistic employment.
Those who attended the meeting were ACS Higher Education; ACS Planning; Principal Secretary, Finance; Secretary L&E; Director, IIM; MD, J&K Bank; Secretary, School Education; DG, Budget and other concerned officers while the Deputy Commissioners participated virtually.
The Chief Secretary had a detailed assessment of the primary objectives of Mission YUVA aiming at generating mass employment opportunities through enterprise creation and establishing cross-sectoral business support ecosystem here. He stressed on enhancing the existing businesses to increase SGDP (State Gross Domestic Product) and create a startup ecosystem with neo-innovative enterprises. He impressed upon the Deputy Commissioners to take periodic review of the outcomes so that the mission achieves its objectives smoothly.
In his presentation, Secretary L&E Kumar Rajeev Ranjan, gave an overview of the scheme. He informed the meeting that this program aims to create over 1,37,000 new enterprises and generate more than 4,25,000 employment opportunities across various sectors.
He further gave out that, so far, the mission has received 31,411 loan applications, with 29,460 for nano-enterprises, 1,502 for new MSMEs and 443 for existing MSMEs. The total loan amount disbursed to date is Rs 29.70 crore with a total subsidy support of Rs 5.15 crore.
Regarding the updated IEC campaign Udyam Jagriti, it was revealed that panchayat-level awareness campaign has been successful with over 150,000 attendees from across all the 20 districts including 50,000 women participants. This campaign has also facilitated over 8,000 loan applications.
Moreover, it was apprised that a capacity building mela was conducted on August 2, 2025, across all 20 districts, attracting over 6,346 attendees. Additionally, a hybrid training module has been launched in ITIs and polytechnics to train the aspiring entrepreneurs.
Regarding the E-commerce and market linkages, it was given out that the mission is focused on improving the market access through creation of an e-commerce seller platform leveraging the ONDC network and organizing business conclaves and regional trade fairs to promote trade and commerce.
The Mission YUVA App and Portal have been instrumental in the mission’s success, with over 50,000 downloads and 140,000 visits to the portal. A robust support system is in place, including Special Purpose Vehicles, Small Business Development Units (SBDUs), Business Help Desks (BHDs) and a network of 1,000 Yuva Doots to provide grassroots-level support to the potential entrepreneurs, the meeting was informed.