Secretary, NEC took a meeting on Skill Development in the North Eastern Council Secretariat on 23rd September, 2013. The meeting was attended by Joint Secretary and Director General, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Representatives from Ministry of Rural Development, National Skill Development Corporation, Ministry of DoNER, State Secretaries, officials engaged in implementation of the Skill Development programmes in the NE states and Training Providers operating in the North East.
The meeting was called with the back drop of incidents of high literacy rate not leading to employable qualification, high incidences of dropout rate at all stages including class 5, class 8 and class 10 and also unemployment rate which are comparatively higher than the national average.
Detailed discussions were held on the revised Guidelines on Skill Development Intensive Schemes (SDIS) of the Ministry of Labour and Employment. The scheme is to be implemented through the State Government and provides 100% funding for training cost of youths in different trades both in situ and outside of the North East by any entity, public or private with placement rate of 75% and salary of not less than Rs. 7000. There are 1400 recognized modules across 70 plus sectors and NCVT Certificate are issued to successful candidates. Registration of Vocational Training Providers (VTPs) is to be done online.
Since the programme has to be implemented through the State Governments, the Director General of Ministry of Labour urged the State Government representatives to come up with specific proposals and Job Melas within the next 2/3 months where a platform is provided to the un-employed youths desirous of joining Skill Development Programmes and various VTPs, as was organized in Itanagar recently. The youths can identify courses and the institutions where they want to take the training. He also highlighted the substantial increase of fund available for upgradation of existing ITIs and also for establishing new ITIs in the States and pointed out that funds released for the ITIs to the States were not being utilized to the extend of 70% in Arunachal Pradesh, 60% in Assam, 50% in Meghalaya, 42% in Mizoram, 80% in Nagaland and 66% in Tripura. The participants were also informed that funds for Skill Development under NRLM has increased to 25% and the National Urban Livelihood Mission is also approved and that atleast 20% of BOCW cess to be used for Skill Development.
The Aajeevika Scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, which is also to be implemented through the State Government provides for 90% of the Training cost where the course content is to be certified by NCVT, SSC or other body certified by MoRD, provides boarding and lodging for the trainees, assistance for holding Job Melas, placement incentive to training providers etc. The Chief Operating officer and dedicated team for the programme in the States for effective implementation of the programme is not yet identified and established in the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.
The National Skill Development Corporation which is a Public Private Partnership Agency created by the Ministry of Finance also has a mandate to Skill 150 million people by 2022 on different skill trades across the board. The training programmes are to be implemented directly by the training partners with funding from the NSDC. Trainers are to draw a 10 year plan for training of youths and submit their proposal directly to the NSDC. The representative from the NSDC had urged upon the training institutes operating in the North East States to come forward and take full use of the scheme.
The UDAAN Scheme implemented by the NSDC for Jammu & Kashmir for training of graduates and post graduates where there is direct placement linkage with the industries and corporate bodies could be considered for replication also for the North Eastern States. This will help in solving the unemployment problems faced by the graduated youths who otherwise have some difficulties in getting jobs both in the government and private sectors.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/skill-development-meeting-at-nec/