NYMA-UKaid help employ 4,000 workers

Kathmandu, Apr. 15

A partnership programme of Nepal Yarn Manufacturers' Association (NYMA) and UKaid Seep has provided training to 4,000 people and employed them in five spinning industries.

NYMA and Seep's multi-factory partnership since November 2019 enabled quality job-linked skilling and employment for about 4,000 workers and improved factory capability at the Triveni Spinning Mill, Jagadamba Spinning Mill, Reliance Spinning Mill, Tricot Industry and Jaya Spinning Mill.

Both the organisations claimed at a programme, organised to commemorate the impact of the Seep-NYMA partnership and reflect on a the way forward for sustained job creation and industry transformation of the yarn industry, on Thursday that the partnership contributed to inclusive job creation and industry transformation.

The event, attended by leading industrialists from the yarn industry such as Ram Chandra Shanghai, Bishnu Neupane, Abheek Jyoti, Shakti Golyan, and Akshya Golyan also saw the launch of an industry-led curricula and model for structured apprenticeship-based job creation.

The improved and standardised curricula – co-created, tested, and refined with inputs from the factories – alongside improved trainer capability, infrastructure, and streamlined processes at the factories, can enable and ensure sustained productivity and job creation by the industry, said the organisers in a statement. 

“We are proud of our joint efforts which have strategically addressed skill gaps to meet industry workforce and productivity demands,” said British Ambassador to Nepal Nicola Pollitt.

She said that 35 per cent women employment in industries like Jagadamba Spinning is a matter of happiness. She emphasised on modernisation, competitiveness and export promotion for the industrial growth.

Pawan Golyan, chairperson of NYMA, said that improved quality and price competitiveness needed for the export promotion.

 “Skilling initiatives coupled with firm growth-enabling interventions from an integral part of our combined efforts to transform the yarn industry through modernisation and expansion, diversification of its exports to new geographies and improve organisational capabilities,” he said.

Baljit Vohra, Team Leader of UKaid Seep, said that the partnership is an embodiment of an industry’s effort to develop an apprenticeship-based skills and placement initiative to develop a job-ready workforce in emerging industry occupations. Other industries contemplating skilling initiatives can learn from the experiences of this initiative, he said.

The partnership has achieved several other milestones as well, such as increased recruitment of women for the first time in partner industries like Jagadamba; about 35 per cent of the workers trained and recruited are women. 

Bishnu Neupane of Jagadamba Spinning said that presence of women at the workplace had disciplined male coworkers.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 16 April 2021.