New Delhi, March 3 -- The United States Department of Labor has offered Rs.742 crore ($81 million) worth of grants to states and eligible entities under its RESTART initiative to "develop programs to train ex-offenders for high-need American jobs and assist them in being productive contributors to the US economy".

In a notice on its official website, the labor dept said this is aimed at funding training and apprenticeships for eligible youth in order to facilitate their re-entry into the job market and gain employment.

According to the website, the Reentry Employment Opportunities (REO) program provides funding, authorized as Research and Evaluation under Section 169 of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014, for ju...