Govt allocates Rs 12,000 cr to train 1 cr people over 4 years

The Centre aims to impart skills to one crore people over the next four years (2016-20) through this programme. The PMKVY will impart training to 60 lakh youth and certify 40 lakh people, who have acquired skills non-formally, under the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Financial support to trainees will be given in the form of travel allowance and by taking care of their boarding and lodging cost. Post-placement support will be given directly to the beneficiaries through the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme.

The disbursement of training cost to partners will be linked to Aadhaar and biometrics for better transparency and targeting. Mobilisation, monitoring and post-training placement of trainees will be done through Rozgar Melas (placement camps) and Kaushal Shivirs (mobilisation camps). “Skill training would be done based on industry-led standards aligned to the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF),” an official statement said. 

Apart from catering to domestic skill needs, the PMKVY will focus on skill training aligned with international standards for overseas employment, including in Gulf countries and Europe. Also, there will be scholarships for students, undergoing training in high-end job roles, under the programme.

The target allocation between fresh trainings and RPL will be flexible and interchangeable, depending on functional and operational requirements. MoS for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge) Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, “This is a big step for us towards empowering the youth of our country and we are committed to strengthen the system and make these trainings more effective with robust monitoring and outcome, with this new version of PMKVY.”

“We completed close to 20 lakh trainings in 2015-16 under PMKVY and overall did 1.04 crore trainings in the year. We are geared up to meet the target that we have set for ourselves. We seek support from the industry and our partners in making this scheme a successful example worldwide and encourage the youth to reap maximum benefit from it,” Rudy said. He added that the decision would help scale up the initiatives of the Skill India, which will celebrate its first anniversary on July 15, 2016.

 “The scheme, completely aligned to common norms as notified earlier, would move to a grant-based model where the training and assessment cost would be directly reimbursed to training providers and assessment bodies in accordance with the common norms,” an official said.