India is a country known for its diversity. With so many positives which would take infinite hours of discussion, there are some issues that are making citizens worry. One of the most critical problems in India is unemployment and states are taking several initiatives to solve this but it looks like the solution is far away from our demands. Although, today we are writing how Sikkim is doing something that other states can learn from.
Why Sikkim is special?
Being a tiny state situated in the Himalayas between India and China, it is the only organic state in India right now with high literacy and has the best working conditions for women. With a population close to 610,000 people, Sikkim is the third-richest state (after Delhi and Chandigarh) by per capita income in the country. Let’s have a look why Sikkim is improving in terms of generating employment.
Government promoting Entrepreneurship
In an era when people are looking for regular jobs and settle down, Entrepreneurship has transformed the thought process very quickly. Talking about what makes Sikkim stand out from the rest, Chief Minister Pawan Chamling was seen advising thousands of youth waiting for jobs in the state: They should overcome the desire to get government employment and, in fact, help the state to create jobs for others.
Sikkim has a startup scheme in which the government provides financial support in the form of seed capital of 25 percent of the project cost — even 35 percent in certain cases — entailing total investment up to Rs 20 lakh. The remaining fund for a startup can be arranged from banks by taking loans.
Entrepreneurs helping each other
A big contribution comes from entrepreneurs like Rewaj Chettri, who has launched over 30 ventures — the most recent being the taxi aggregator app, NE Taxi. He started the app with Rs 300 that he spent on purchasing a domain name www.netaxi.in, using shared hosting two years ago. NE Taxi is a tourist cab service catering to travelers in the northeast. He now employees 26 people and has his “annual turnover crossing Rs 3 crore”, making it to the Forbes list of Asia.
“We are a bootstrapped company and all the profits are pumped back to grow the business. We are set to expand to North India by the end of 2020,” Chhetri told in a recent interview.
Chhetri and other entrepreneurs have started an “Entrepreneurs’ Hub and Consultation Centre” where they build sustainable robust start-up ecosystem in Sikkim with the government’s support.
True meaning of women empowerment
For empowering females, ladies belonging to underprivileged families from rural areas are trained free of cost to knit, crochet and craft at her enterprise of fibrecraft. After training, the ladies either start their own enterprises or work with a startup called Fidgety Fingers that markets their products.
The dark past
This happened because of the past this state had. According to a 2016 study by Indian Journal of Psychiatry, some 1,604 suicide cases were recorded from 2006 to 2015 in the state that also battles a scourge of drug abuse. A majority of those who killed themselves were found unemployed.
