123Pune.com

Pune, April 16: When Vishal More, an undergraduate teenager from rural Pune belonging to the backward class community joined a crash training course meant for aspiring call centre employees conducted by Pune Zilla Parishad (ZP) under the Rajashri Shahu Self Employment Development Project a few months ago, little did he know that his life was about to change drastically.

Recruited by IT major IBM, More today earns Rs 6,000 a month and now even has his eyes set on a company sponsored foreign trip.

Like More, the project has changed lives of 10,731 youths since the last eight months. District Collector Prabhakar Deshmukh on Monday announced the accomplishment of the project.

Deshmukh said by March 31, a total of 9,051 youths had completed their one and a half month long training under the project while 1,680 are still undergoing it. The target set for Pune district was 10,000. Forty-five per cent of the beneficiaries of the project are women.

He said by March end, banks have disbursed loans totally amounting to Rs 2.83 crore to a total of 534 persons while loan applications of 500 candidates are pending. He said a total of 1,755 youths have already set up their business with the help of family members while 80 candidates have come together to set up their businesses which are part of six separate industrial clusters.

Deshmukh said a one-day rally of youth who have completed training under the project will be held at Agricultural College ground on April 20. The rally will be addressed by union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.

The youth will also be guided by Director General of YASHADA Ratnakar Gaikwad, Sunanda Pawar from Baramati-based Krishi Vikas Pratishthan, Rajkumar Chordiya of Praveen Masalewale and computer scientist Vijay Bhatkar.

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