Impact of RSETI EDPs on income and employment generation

On the economic development front, increasing unemployment is the biggest challenge for India. India is one of those developing countries which continue to have the problem of unemployment and underemployment despite continuous policy emphasis and programmes to eliminate the problem. There is a need for promoting self-employment for the unemployed youth, especially for those living below the poverty line and enhance their skills through proper entrepreneurship training. Millions of unemployed youth particularly from rural and semi-urban areas who could not get access to higher/professional education, yet more oriented towards white collar jobs, are driven to despair by not finding suitable jobs. The Government of India has undertaken lot of initiatives for employment in the country. In order to surmount the critical situation of unemployment, a different initiative was taken in the form of Rural Self Employment Training Institute. The study was conducted on the beneficiaries of RSETI, from Ludhiana district of Punjab state who were engaged in income generation activities. The results of the study indicated that most of the beneficiaries had increased their annual income after establishing an enterprise and they were able to generate employment for others also. The data revealed that majority of the male family members and paid employees were engaged in an enterprise as compared to female family members and paid employees. Variables like family annual income and family size had a significant relation with the income and employment generation.