Here is good news for all unemployed but educated youth from Mongar, Zhemgang and Samtse. If you have a great business idea but could never find the money to fund it, the employment department of the labor ministry has a plan for you.
Under the Income Generation Start up Program organized by the ministry and supported by the United Nations Development Program, 15 aspiring entrepreneurs from the three dzongkhags will get Nu 100,000 each to start a business. And the best thing about the program is that you don’t have to pay the money back. “The government will grant the money without interest and they don’t have to pay back at all,” the employment director, Jamayang Gaylay told Business Bhutan. The young people who come up with the ideas will receive a three-week orientation and the department will train them in book keeping, basic accounting, marketing, and project proposal preparation.
The director said the government plans to increase the number of beneficiaries to 60 and include youths from other dzongkhags. But the pilot project will be for the three dzongkhags as the poverty rate is high there.
Since the beginning of this year, the ministry has also introduced another project, the Entrepreneur Development Program, aimed at bringing the unemployment problem under control.
“This program will help the youths to take loans from the banks and the government will act as mortgage, between the lender and the borrower,” Jamayang Gaylay said.
Similar programs have been successful in other developing countries. In Kenya, the government sanctions loans to youth, but four friends of the borrower will have to be the guarantors. The idea is that the friends will keep the borrower on his toes to make the business a success. But surprisingly, not many people were aware of the Nu 100,000 program. As of now, no one has come forward to avail the opportunity despite advertisements in the print and broadcast media.
The government, through the program, attempts to bring down the 4% unemployment rate faced by Bhutan. In a survey conducted by Business Bhutan in collaboration with the Centre for Research Initiative, Thimphu, it was found that 50.3% of the 1,266 graduates who attended the graduate orientation program are willing to take the risk of starting a business on their own. This is a change from the popular assumption that most graduates prefer only civil service jobs. The survey was conducted after the prime minister addressed the graduates and said at least 75,000 jobs will be created at the end of the 10th Plan, mostly in the private sector. “The government is already very big, it can’t expand and therefore, the job opportunities you must look for are not in the government but in the private sector,” he told the graduates then.
On October 11, the labor ministry organised a job fair in Thimphu where 2,500 job seekers were seen for just 521 jobs available. Only 12 of them were recruited by three companies after the spot interview. But a few graduates Business Bhutan talked to did not take the Nu 100,000 program very positively. “The money is just enough to open a pan shop,” said Phuntsho, a recent graduate from India.
