“When you are afraid of something, dive straight into it; because the intensity of abstaining from it is greater (worse) than what you are afraid of.”

Imam Ali (a.s.), Nahjul Balagha, Saying 175

Our ‘Rangyul Kargil’ with a population of about 1,40,800 is one of the twin districts of Ladakh UT erstwhile Ladakh division of J&K state. Interestingly our district literacy rate is 71.34% which is higher than the state (J&K) literacy rate of 67.16% (2011 Census). As per one news report, there are about 600 unemployed engineers in Ladakh and since 2019 post abrogation of Article 370, youth demonstrations have intensified against the government for failing to provide adequate employment opportunities including unambiguity over results of District and UT level exams conducted in the past couple of years.

Even after qualifying from reputed universities/institutes like IIT/NIT, DU, JNU, AMU, and Jamia in various fields of studies; our youths are not getting equal career opportunities in Kargil or elsewhere. Why?

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This is an alarming situation and to understand this we’ll try to analyze the scope of career opportunities we can avail in Kargil and what constitutes our failure to seek jobs outside Kargil. We will also learn to identify our positive attributes and how to leverage technology to prepare ourselves for the mainstream career journey.

Employment Scope in Kargil-Ladakh

Due to the geographic landscape and high altitude, Kargil always had employment opportunities only for government jobs like District posts, Teaching, Clerks, Nursing, and local Business opportunities in dry fruits, tourism (viz., hotels, restaurants), etc. Even after the abrogation of Article 370, there might be some scope that private enterprises (may) to set up their factories or offices in Ladakh. But this is still a long way to go due to the mountainous and rugged landscape, and difficult transport route to the Kargil and Zojila tunnel under construction which will take a minimum of 5 to 6 years to be fully functional.

So apart from limited government opportunities, there is some scope for Electrical, Civil, and Mechanical Engineers; not to mention the absolute scarcity of jobs for IT, Computer science, and Electronics engineers. A recent update from LAHDC Kargil shows over 50,000 applications received for 368 KSSRB district posts out of which over 200 vacancies are of class-IV jobs; wonder how the such scale of unemployment will be accommodated today or in the future?

In Kargil there is a generalized misunderstanding that govt will/shall offer employment to everyone from the district, coming from diverse fields of education in both conventional courses viz., Medical, Engineering, Arts, Commerce, PT Teachers, Education, and non-conventional courses. Such kind of expectation or mindset is unprecedented in any other Indian territory or state. In fact, within India, a great deal of cross-migration takes place in search of employment, mostly to Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, and Gujarat for formal as well as informal sector jobs.

Immense Opportunities Countrywide

The Covid Pandemic has disrupted and affected every economy worldwide due to which there have been mass layoffs within the corporate sector mostly in US and Europe. But India has managed to be more resilient in this economic turmoil and still has tremendous opportunities in IT, Software Development, Marketing, Sales, Services & Entrepreneurship.

Today our country has about 100 Unicorns (Unicorn is an enterprise with a valuation of over 1Billion USD). Due to the Indian market’s resiliency compared to its contemporaries from developed & emerging markets; it has attracted attention to be the next manufacturing hub given the supply chain disruption globally and with uncertainty looming over China due to the pandemic. We should remember that many industries from developed economies are investing via FDI in India in diverse sectors such as Electronics, Services, IT, and Automobiles with a focus on Electric Vehicle technology. To date, we have received investments of about 80 billion USD annually. Apple has already started manufacturing the iPhone 14 one of its high-end smartphones from its Chennai factory. India is also one of the largest IT services export hubs and in the future will attract more investments in emerging technologies like the Cloud, AI/ML, and Internet of Things (IoT); equally creating opportunities in these growing technologies.

“Opportunity passes away like the cloud. Therefore, make use of good opportunities.”

Imam Ali a.s., Nahjul Balagha, Saying 21

Hence if you have the passion, courage, and ambition to excel; then there is no dearth of opportunities today in our country.

Capitalize on Your Strengths and Positive Attributes

What I have observed in my experience compared to fellow youths in my residential state is that the youths in Kargil are very ambitious and hard-working. I have noticed that in every 2nd or 3rd household in Kargil town and in some villages to there is at least one youth from the family/household who has completed his Post Graduation studies. In fact, as we all know many Kargili students have even qualified for competitive exams like NEET, JEE, JRF, KAS, etc.

So, it is very clear that our youths don’t lack in their endeavors or being ambitious in life. But what they lack is open-mindedness and willingness to work outside our native town, to socialize and collaborate with others(non-Ladakhi’s) in our career dreams and opportunities. We should learn to capitalize on our innate strengths and overcome our weaknesses to take advantage of this growing economy.

Remember! This world is a global village and we’re living in a hyper-connected society. Hence If we want to excel and aspire that our district should flourish, and develop economically; then we must be fearless in exploring external job opportunities. With these courses of action & experiences, we can definitely uplift our community thereby setting ideals for our future generation.

How to Begin?

For our youths to be empowered and progress; the first attempt should be to educate one another, share ideas & challenges among yourselves and seek guidance from fellow Kargil professionals working in government or private enterprises. We should create a network group or database of like-minded students, and professionals where we can guide and inform each other of career opportunities in different locations across India.

Social media has reached every corner of the world today and we should learn to take advantage of such platforms like LinkedIn where today almost every organization has its presence and shares its vacancies for business, accounts, sales, teaching, engineering, medical & services jobs. We should learn the use and benefits of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platforms like Coursera, Edx, and Udemy. YouTube is such a beneficial tool to gain knowledge, skill set, and personality development but the majority of us are wasting our precious time watching futile videos. As an example, here is one important link of Top 8 channels on YouTube you can visit to enhance your knowledge.

So let Us Transform Ourselves and in Return Our Community.

“For the man who has eyes the dawn has already appeared.”

Imam Ali (a.s.) Nahjul Balagha, Saying 169

Thank You and All the Best!!