Briefing newspersons, Health and Labour Minister Ashok Bhatt said the scheme -- Pt Deendayal Sankalit Svalamban Yojna -- was an attempt to provide self-employment to educated unemployed of the State for which over 2,000 youths have already been imparted training and various government agencies assigned specific tasks for the same.

The scheme, if implemented properly, would benefit over 47,000 youths in the 51 talukas of the State by the end of 1999, he said. The educated unemployed under the scheme were being imparted knowledge and training in about 124 streams and given loans to be self-reliant, he added.

The scheme would later be carried out in yearly phased manner throughout the country by the Central as well as the State governments, Bhatt added. The function at Parade Ground near Collectorate marks the beginning of this scheme for the whole State from Vadodara. It is also for the first time that a scheme would be executed with collective involvement of several government agencies including the Collectorate, Panchayat, Labour department, besides others.

About the unemployment problem, Bhatt said there were many factors responsible for the same; prominent among them being education sans orientation, corruption in private and public sectors in the past and also inefficiency in the government machinery and absence of networking with banks giving loans. ``Therefore, an urgent need to initiate self-employment shemes,'' he added and said that all the government agencies would be coordinating and their schemes incorporated to make this new collective attempt a success.

According to Bhatt, the scheme would also usher in the much sought after overall improvement in the socio-economic status of the society and specially that of the women and rural youth. ``The self-reliance will mean, awareness, progress and prosperity in the society,'' he said and several Central and International agencies such as Internation Labour Union were extending help to execute this scheme properly.