SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Govt to establish one Institute of Skills in every state, says Hegde

INDIA-RAJASTHAN/ [File] Representative image

Three years after the NDA government had set up skill development ministry, it is aiming to create massive training infrastructure across the country to institutionalise the certification process. From setting up a separate skill development service cadre to setting up universities, Indian Institute of Skills in all states, the ministry has planned big.

Skill development ministry has an aim to train people to find jobs so as to address the unemployment issue in the country. Lack of enough jobs has been a constant criticism faced by the NDA government.

“Job creation was never our mandate, but only skill certification. We are now expanding our technology platform to include data on people who get certificates and then take up jobs. After expansion we will be able to track their jobs they have been employed with,” Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Anant Kumar Hegde said.

It’s been five months since Hegde took charge of the ministry. He said the ministry is creating infrastructure for furthering the skill certification system starting from traditional trade to university level.

“The initial plan was to open five Indian Institute of Skills. Now, we have decided to open one such institute each in all the states. These institutes are planned with private sponsorship. But where we will not get any collaboration, the government will invest its own money,” Hegde added.

Apart from these, seven skill development universities are also planned. As this is a new ministry and requires specialised focus, the minister said after getting an approval for creating a separate cadre of skill development service, the UPSC has been asked to start recruitment.

India is still far behind in terms of certified skill workers. Currently, the number hovers around less than 5 per cent, whereas in some foreign countries the number is above 60 per cent. Most of the workers in India are not certified since most of them are involved in trades which are part of the traditional skills.

According to latest data, more than one crore people were trained in 2017. The ministry has been focusing on building industry standardised infrastructure for driving skill development training through Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKK). Now there are 527 such kendras, allocated across 27 states covering 484 Districts and 406 parliamentary constituencies. Out of which, 328 PMKKs have been established and work is under progress to establish 150 additional PMKK centres. Further, 263 PMKKs have been inaugurated by their respective Members of Parliament. A total of 211 PMKKs have been inaugurated and 261 PMKKs were established in 2017.

Hegde said that the focus is to create an infrastructure with help of public-private partnership. As even in case of universities that are being set up, the ministry plays a regulatory role. We will formulate the curricula and other related procedures, while the rest be handled by the partner agency. Skills development ministry has also tied up with the HRD ministry, he added.

Explaining how certification was helping traditional communities, Hegde said, after getting these certificates people will be able to secure jobs even in foreign countries. “There is a huge demand in Gulf countries for workers in the field of construction, road building and carpentry. After the certification, people can apply for these jobs. Workers from countries which are already giving certificates have a huge presence in Gulf countries,” the minister added.

The ministry is also going to set up Nirvana fund to help nano entrepreneurs. Under this scheme, funds upto Rs 2.5 lakhs will be given without any collateral.

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.
Topics : #Skill India

Related Reading