Mr Chief Minister, high-interest self-employment schemes cannot undo the loss Reservation Policy is causing 

Another youth-oriented scheme, Mission Yuva, was unveiled this week with the familiar promise of self-employment and entrepreneurship. On paper, this initiative joins an impressive list: JKREGP, PMEGP, Himayat, Mumkin, Tejaswini, Startup J&K, and more. However, the optimism wrapped in government scheme brochures often ignores the hard realities faced by educated youth in Jammu & Kashmir.

At the heart of this recurring issue is a simple but crucial contradiction: How can unemployed youth become job creators when the loans they are offered come with unaffordable interest rates and meagre seed capital? Most of these schemes still operate through commercial banking channels, charging interest rates in the range of 10%–14% — rates that can crush a small business before it even begins.

Contrast this with global examples: Grameen Bank in Bangladesh offers microcredit at 3%–5%. In Kenya, the Youth Enterprise Fund operates within a similar range. Europe, North America, and even Gulf nations provide youth startup loans at near-zero to 5%, often coupled with mentoring and market linkages. In J&K, we are asking our youth to build empires with a financial albatross around their necks.

But even this hurdle pales in comparison to the psychological despair induced by the current reservation policy, particularly among the educated youth of Kashmir. In the latest JKSSB Junior Assistant selection list, only 7 out of 27 candidates were from Kashmir. This is not an isolated outcome, it is part of a troubling pattern where many bright, hardworking and competitive youth are consistently pushed down by a policy architecture that does not account for regional demographics or educational progress.

Reservation, a tool meant for upliftment, must not become an instrument of injustice. In J&K, it is urgently time to rationalize the policy based on updated socio-economic data, academic performance, and regional representation.

Add to this the slow pace of recruitment exams, delayed result announcements, and inconsistent interview schedules, and we have a generation trapped between policy apathy and structural inequality. Recruitment must be fast-tracked, and every job opportunity must be made to count, fairly and transparently.

In a state where hope is a rare currency, continuing this dual assault on our youth’s ambitions is not just bad economics — it is a recipe for deeper despair. J&K deserves low-interest credit for its job creators and a reservation framework that is fair, updated, and just.