PM may launch Skill India this Independence Day

NEW DELHI: On Independence Day last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, had underlined his three signature themes: Skill India, a Digital India and Make-In-India.

While the Digital India and Make-In-India schemes have already begun, the ambitious Skill India programme is likely to be launched from the Red Fort this August 15. Among other aspects, the programme will comprise Prime Minister’s Kaushal Vikas Yojana, a mega skilling effort, and National Skill Development Mission (NSDM).

The three-tiered institutional NSDM has been tasked to “converge, coordinate, implement and monitor skilling activities” on a pan-India basis.

The three tiers comprise the Governing Council (GC), the Steering Committee (SC) and a Mission Directorate (MD). While the Prime Minister will head the GC, the SC will be headed by the MSDE minister and the MSDE secretary will preside over the MD.

“The GC will have powers to identify and run select submissions in high priority areas. Seven sub-missions have been proposed in institutional training, infrastructure, convergence, trainers, overseas employment, sustainable livelihoods, and leveraging public infrastructure at this stage,” Sunil Arora, secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), told HT.

The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave the go-ahead for the country’s first-ever integrated National Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (NSDE) policy.

The new policy is a change from the 2009 policy formulated by the labour and employment ministry. While the earlier policy focused only on skill development, the new policy assigns equal importance to supporting and developing entrepreneurship skills through entrepreneurship hubs (E-Hubs), inclusiveness, promoting women entrepreneurs etc.

“The new policy focuses on skilling with speed and scale, while ensuring quality outcome. Given the paradigm shift in the skilling ecosystem and the experience gained through implementation of various skill development programmes in the country, this ministry has attempted the NSDE policy 2015,” said Arora.

The draft policy was placed online on May 8, 2015 for comments. 339 comments were received from across the country, besides the feedback from various states, ministries and departments.

“Altogether we will have to provide additional skills to 298.3 million of the existing workforce. We estimate that 104.6 million is going to enter into the workforce from 2015 to 2022. Together, we require 402.9 million (104.6 + 298.3) people to be trained by 2022,” Arora said.

Key entities like the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA), the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and the Directorate of Training will function under the overall guidance of the mission.

On Thursday, the Cabinet also approved the introduction of common norms across about 70 skill development schemes being implemented by different ministries and departments of Government of India. At present, each programme has its own norms for eligibility criteria, duration of training, cost of training, outcomes, monitoring and tracking mechanism etc.

ALTOGETHER WE WILL HAVE TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SKILLS TO 298.3 MILLION OF THE EXISTING WORKFORCE.... WE REQUIRE 402.9 MILLION (104.6 + 298.3) PEOPLE TO BE TRAINED BY 2022.

SUNIL ARORA, secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship