Two years on, skill training yet to take off in many states
NEW DELHI: Halfway through an ambitious scheme by the federal government to train 6 million young people, some State governments, which were to train 1.5 million of these, are yet to even initiate the process, according to the government data that HT has obtained.
Launched in April, 2016, the second phase of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY) has a four-year target to impart relevant skills to 4.5 million candidates through training centres of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the nodal agency of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE); 1.5 million were to be trained by various state governments.
NSDC claims to have trained 1.25 million candidates through its 7,000 training partners, according to its website, but various State governments haven’t even initiated the process.
The data on the states’ performance available with the Ministry shows that NSDC has approved proposals from 35 states and assigned a target to skill 600,000 candidates in the first phase but only five states – Puducherry, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana and Uttarakhand – have commenced training. The rest are still in various stages of completing the approval process.
Manish Kumar, MD & CEO, NSDC declined comment. A senior official of NSDC said on condition of anonymity that the delay of two years is due to setting up of “a seamless process to operationalise the scheme”.
“The delay is due to developing a synergy with states and taking stringent measures to ensure quality training.”
He further adds, “Due to these reasons, the approval process was initially slow. However, I believe we have almost overcome the initial challenges and in another two years, all the states will be able to meet the target.
As per the protocol of the scheme, training institutes in various states need to fill up the online Centre Accreditation Application Form (CAAF) followed by inspection and rating. After that, NSDC assigns a certain number of candidates to each training centre. “The training centres need state government approval be- fore they register themselves for CAAF. Some states are not very prompt which also causes a delay,” said a senior NSDC official on condition of anonymity.
State governments blame NSDC for not allowing online registration for over six months. “NSDC’s online portal remained defunct for over six months and I repeatedly raised this issue with them. Institutes willing to participate in the scheme have no way to join it,” Suneel Yadav, who heads the Skill Division Mission in Chhattisgarh, says.
Sanjeev Singh, director, Skill Division Mission in Madhya Pradesh says that he still needs clarity on training process. “We have raised our concern to NSDC and till we get the response, we can’t start it,” Singh Said.
DD Pawar, in-charge of the Skill Division Mission in Maharashtra alleges that NSDC has assigned the state a target to train 1.67 lakh candidates just a few months ago. “The delay is on the part of NSDC. We are in the process of identifying the training institutes who can teach different job roles,” said Pawar.
The NSDC claims to have made available over ~400 crore to the states as the first tranche of funds. The total budget of PMKVY is ~12,000 crore out of which ~3,000 crore is earmarked for states to meet the expense of training of their share of candidates.