Punjab National Bank (PNB) Rural Self Employment Training Institute (RSETI), Kangra has provided a 13-day training of handmade woodcrafts to the jail inmates of District open-air Jail, Dharamshala. The training concluded on 13 February with the distribution of the certificates to the 33 jail inmates.

“It is a very good initiative for the prisoners. They can get employment easily after getting out of the jail. If one puts this handmade stuff on the stall at the roadside, he can earn a pretty well,” said Vinod Chambial, jail incharge.

The PNB RSETI imparts free training courses and skill upgradation to the rural unemployed youth having age ranging between 18 to 45 years so they can get better employment opportunities. 70 per cent of the trained youth has already settled and 35 per cent out of the settled youth is linked with the banks through credit training,” said Kamal Prakash, Director PNB RSETI.

“We also do marketing and provide a platform for these trainees to sell their products in the markets. The trainees are provided with stalls in the various state fairs and events like Red Cross, etc,” he added.

Talking more about the programme the director further said that the Institute provides free training to the youth for various works like agricultural production, mobile repair, computer courses, computer hardware networking, accounting, vegetable cultivation, beauty and makeup related training, bee keeping, diary, mushroom production, etc. The number of days of the training course varies from course to course. After the completion of the training, the Institute also provides certificates to the trainees and with the help of these certificates the trainees can apply for loan in any of the bank in order start their own business.

“We have learnt how to make wooden stuff using bamboo sticks. We can even sell this stuff and earn a good amount. Bamboo is easily available so it is a good initiative and a great learning experience”, said Tarseem Singh, trainee and prisoner in the jail.

“After completion of my jail sentence I will continue this work as business because by doing something productive our mind will remain busy and it will not be diverted towards any wrong habit like theft, drug abuse, alcohol etc”, he added.