Job-seekers have reason to be happy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched the National Career Counselling Portal as part of an endeavour to modernise all government-run employment exchanges.

The facility, which is part of the government’s focus on skilling and employment generation aims to create a direct market place for workers and employers.

The centralised portal, will be supported by a web of interconnected Career Centres where prospective candidates can come for counselling free of cost from government certified counselors and psychologists.

Here is all you need to know about this new jobs website:

1. The National Career Service portal was launched at the 46th session of Indian Labour Conference . The portal aims to bring on board around 20 million job seekers already registered with employment exchanges across India. It also aspires to bring 900,000 establishments and companies on the portal.

2. Currently, more than 44.7 million job seekers are registered with India’s 956 employment exchanges. Of them, at least 26.88 million are men and women below the age of 29, according to official data.

3. The main stakeholders for the NCS would include

Unemployed candidates seeking jobs

Students seeking career counselling

Candidates seeking vocational / occupational guidance

Illiterate, under-privileged sections of society, blue-collar workers seeking placements and guidance

Persons with different abilities (PWDs), ex-servicemen, veterans / senior citizens, etc.

Employers seeking suitable candidates

4. The NCS will offer registration for job aspirants and employers for free. But to avoid misuse, the labour ministry will ask job seekers to link their Aadhaar number when registering with the website. Similarly, companies and organisations need to submit their society registrations or company registration certificate copies while getting empanelled on the job portal.

5. There are about 982 employment exchanges in India and, in the first phase, the government has planned to modernise and transform 100 of these, for which a sum of Rs 190 crore has been allocated. The employment exchanges will also serve as counselling centres. So apart from searching and applying for jobs on the portal, candidates can also avail career-related counselling by either visiting these centres or through helpline numbers. So the NCS will provide variety of services including registrations for jobseekers and employers, job posting, career counselling, aptitude assessment, job matching, information on availability of courses at educational institutions, training providers, guidance on self-employment and entrepreneurship etc.

6. Here is a snapshot of how it works:

7. According to a report in Mint, since, it’s a Union government initiative and Modi is taking interest in it, all central government ministries and departments and state-run enterprises will be persuaded to post their job vacancies through it. The skill development and entrepreneurship ministry and the ministry of small and medium enterprises will be key partners of this initiative.