Shillong, July 31: In a unique initiative to address the problem of unemployment, over 1046 nurses have registered for the 1st Overseas Job Fair to be held in Shillong on August 4.
Informing this on Monday, Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh said, “We have decided to have a job fair for nurses, who are either unemployed or underemployed in the state of Meghalaya and who would like to go overseas for jobs.”
She said few countries have expressed their interest in employing and engaging nurses from Meghalaya. These include Japan, United Kingdoms, UAE, Germany, and Australia. According to her, there is another firm from Singapore, which has also expressed interest to participate in the job fair.
“This is the first thing that we would like to do because it has come to our attention that a large number of nurses are without jobs in the state of Meghalaya,” Lyngdoh said.
According to her, the nurses would also be given a six-month training which includes language skill. The training institutes will be primarily in the main cities of India – Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.
On the government’s role, Lyngdoh said that the government will not only engage professionals coming to the job fairs but will also be spending up to Rs 50,000 for training of each nurse.
She further informed that the government will also sign adequate memorandum of understandings (MoUs) with the various companies and said, “Because we do not want any of our citizens to complain that this is not okay, that is not okay, they are not taking care of, they are not giving us accommodation.”
“What is the salary that likely every nurse will take back home – it will range between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh per month,” she said while adding that over and above accommodation cost and investment for training will be deducted from their salary.
Extending her invitation to all nurses in Meghalaya to join the job fair, Lyngdoh said, “If you don’t have a job and you feel that you are competent enough to go and employ yourself overseas, please join us for the programme on this day.”
“Over 1,000 have registered with us. We hope to have a healthy number of qualified nurses who will come for this programme. Whether or not people who have not registered online can come. You can come and we will allow you to interact with these agencies who will be conducting this job fair. You will receive more information on all of these details and I want to encourage every nurse come for the job fair and see whether or not you would go overseas,” she said.
Over 12,000 nurses are registered as members of the Nursing Council in Meghalaya. However, there is no statistic as to how many are unemployed.
Further, the minister informed that over 5,000 plus have registered in the last nursing exams conducted in the state of which only 202 were given jobs in the government health sector.
“That itself give you a clear indication that we have to start taking of this as well as are training people and then you are not giving them jobs then it is not going to be a very good thing for any government and hence we say let us look at these nurses as this is biggest chunk of individuals…,” she stated.
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