Niranjan Mallick belongs to a poor farming family from the Jajpur district of Odisha. He belongs to a family of nine members and the income of his family is pretty meagre. Though he was interested to continue his study further, due to the scarcity of funds, he had to stop his study after the intermediary level.
Jajpur has attracted a large number of investments from steel industrialists due to its location near the mining hub of manganese and iron ore among the other districts of Odisha. Thus, Niranjan, armed with an intermediate degree, thought that he could try his luck in these industries or the booming hotel industry. But without any proper skill, he was rejected. He even lost faith in himself. In the end, he decided to ditch his home and go to Surat or the dreaded brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh to work as a migrant labourer to support his family’s income.
In the meantime, a mobilisation camp was organised in Jajpur by the state government, which registered the names of unemployed youth so that they could be trained in various programmes run under its supervision. Though hopeless of getting any job, Niranjan attended the camp and registered his name. Later on, he got a call from the mobilisation executive of Abbey West Services – and he convinced Niranjan to visit their training centre.
Niranjan felt that he could convince them to let him work as an office boy in the training center. But, in the training centre, the councillor reassured him that he should take hospitality training for three months, totally free of cost. This course included lodging and food facilities. Later on, he would get a suitable job. He got admitted in the training programme, but he still had doubts regarding his job prospects. In the 3-month programme, he was provided with hospitality and soft skills training.
After completing three months of training, he got employed in the Topaj Group of Hotels at Bhatinda as a junior steward on a salary of ₹8,000 per month. Though the salary was low, he persisted with the company. His grit and determination paid dividends, and he was promoted to the level of a senior steward with a salary of ₹15,000 per month. He was also selected as a ‘skill icon’ for 2018.