Restore SHG scheme; facing starvation: affected engineers

Srinagar, Feb 10: The Self Help Group (SHG) of Engineers Wednesday said that the scrapping of the scheme had pushed hundreds of families towards the brink of starvation.

According to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the SHG engineers have demanded immediate restoration of the Scheme, which was scrapped on 10-08-2020 by the Government.

The scheme was launched in 2003 in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir by the then government for the unemployed technocrats of all streams and was given as an alternative to the government job.

President SHG Syed Parvez while addressing the press conference said, “Scrapping of the scheme has left hundreds of Engineers jobless. We were not burdened by State exchequer, we were ‘Aatmi Nirbar’ and were generating the avenues of revenue of others who were working with Self Help Groups.”

“We fail to understand why the government wants to push the whole unemployed youth of J&K to beg on the roads, what is our fault why the state Administration snatched this self employment (ATMNIRBAR) scheme to we people,” he said.

Pertinently, the SHG has protested many times in the past for revocation of the order of scrapping the scheme.

“We have also raised our issues with the Parliamentary Standing Committee who recently visited the Kashmir valley, they also have assured us that we will take your genuine issue with the Lieutenant Governor,” read the statement.

The SHG said that disbanding of the scheme has led their families on the verge of starvation and there are no other means of earning their livelihood as most of the technocrats have crossed their age limit to get any other job.

The SHG of Engineers appealed the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to restore this innovative ATMNIRBAR scheme as early as possible. —(KNO)