AMIDST a festive atmosphere, A Vijayaraghavan, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) inaugurated the Skill Development Centre built by the Major Jaipal Singh Memorial Trust at Brijpuri in North-East Delhi on October 31, 2022. This is the area which lost 54 innocent lives and which saw widespread damage to property in one of the worst communal violence engineered by the RSS-BJP in February 2020. In a united effort towards revival, one of the main demands of the people of the locality was improvement in skill levels of home based workers and others in the unorganised sector.
QUAMI EKTA BHAVAN: A DREAM FULFILLED
The five storied Quami Ekta Bhavan has a hall on the ground floor, a computer lab and stitching-cooking-beautician training hall on the first floor, two class rooms on the second floor and few residential flats on the adjoining floors. The mixed working population of North-East Delhi mainly work as welders, carpenters, painters, scrap dealers, street vendors, manual workers and construction workers. A large number of women are involved with allied home-based work, sewing and garment making in particular. Their earnings are below minimum wages. The centre has done an initial survey in the area among youth, women and the unemployed to understand the demanded skills (to be acquired) which could earn them decent wages. This was besides the obvious need for communicative English and other soft (computer) skills which turn out to be a bare minimum requirement for all service sector jobs in this era.
The absence of public institutions offering such skills and the private ones charging exorbitant fees practically closes the option for the people in the area with as many forced to join the self employed sectors. The skill development centre attached with the Bhavan tries to bridge this gap. The centre aspires to bring in a qualitative change in the learning outcome of the children in the locality by starting tuition centres, coaching for competitive exams (for professional courses and CUET etc) thus placing them to aim for higher education. The centre would also act as a place for preserving the syncretic culture of Delhi by organising cultural events which celebrate the diverse cultures and maintain communal harmony and amity.
SOLIDARITY FROM KERALA
The people of Kerala had shown exemplary camaraderie in terms of collecting funds for the relief efforts in North-East Delhi after the countrywide call from the Party. In fact the inauguration of the centre was the culmination of a range of activities done by the relief committee starting from immediate relief to the affected families, distribution of one lakh rupees to the families of the deceased, livelihood relief in terms of sewing machines and rehri’s (handcarts) and the continuing scholarships for the children of the deceased. Vijayaraghavan also conveyed the wishes of the people of Kerala in the path of retrieval and rejuvenation of North-East Delhi who have suffered the worst destruction of lives and livelihood.
Brinda Karat, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M), while speaking at the occasion said the centre in the coming days would be a living heritage of Comrade Major Jaipal Singh and hundreds of others who took part in freedom struggle. She said the skill centre would impart training for women home based workers, computer and language skills for the youth and tuitions for children and it will have access for every citizen of the locality cutting across religious-caste barriers. KM Tiwari, CPI(M) Delhi state secretary, thanked all those who helped in setting up the skill centre.
