Skill development programmes undertaken by Ministries to come under one umbrella

To bring in more focus on skill development programmes, the Prime Minister’s Office is mulling the merger of separate works undertaken by various ministries under one umbrella. Even though there is a separate ministry for skill development headed by Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the idea for collating the work allocated to nearly five ministries under the skill development programme was recently mooted by a senior cabinet minister. 

Apart from skill development the other ministries which will be involved in this project include – women and child development ministry, social justice and empowerment ministry, rural development ministry and urban development ministry.

A highly placed source in the government explained, “The exercise is on to bring each of the programmes under one umbrella. The aim of this programme will be that each of these five ministries should work together and focus on skill development. There are various projects and schemes which each of the ministries <g data-gr-id="37">have</g> related to skill development. The idea is to bring each of these together cohesively from different ministries and work towards a common goal of improvement of skill development in the country.”

“Basically the entire programme for skill development should come under one umbrella. Instead of all of these ministries working on the same issue separately. The entire programme should be brought under one ministry instead of being spread out in five different ministries was one of the suggestions given as well,” added the source.

“The entire concept of this is to synergise the work undertaken by each of the ministries into one cohesive unit. For each of the projects being undertaken by the <g data-gr-id="40">ministries</g> the parameters vary as the question is what type of skill upgradation might be needed in an urban or big city might not be relevant in rural areas. This restructuring will also help in regulation of the various programmes which have been undertaken to implement skill development by each of the ministries,” said the source.

After Government of India notified the formation of the Department of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship on 31st July, 2014, after which the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship was created on 10th Nov, 2014. Currently more than 20 Ministries/Departments run 70 plus schemes for skill development in the country.