Besides IAS, IPS and other services, aspirants for babudom will have one more service to choose from in the annual examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) from next year onwards—the Indian Skill Development Service.
“We are speeding up on the creation of a dedicated skill development cadre. In fact, the next civil services exam (2016-17) conducted by UPSC will also recruit for this service. We are working on the job requirement as of now. One guiding idea is to make the service aspirational,” Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Union minister for skill development told HT.
“With so many changes in the skill development scenario – like over 13,000 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) coming under the skill development ministry, plans to set up skill universities, etc, there will be a need for a dedicated cadre that can handle the challenges ahead and infuse the much-needed professionalism. This service will take care of that,” the minister added.
At present, the number of ITIs in the country is 13,105 which cater to about 18,65,629 students at any given point of time. While 2,293 are government-run ITIs, 10,812 are private-run.
On October 7, the Union cabinet had cleared the creation of a Group ‘A’ service for skill development.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government, skill development has occupied primacy with the expectation that the Skill India plan would supply human resources for government-declared mega plans like Digital India, Make in India, etc. There is also the planned target to skill 500 million people by 2022.
A dedicated skill development service will also ensure more government control in a sector that was largely private-initiative led till 2014.
In the previous government, skill development was a department with the primary mandate to coordinate the activities of about 20 ministries. On November 9, 2014, the department was made a full-fledged ministry. The next significant development was to bring the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) under the MSDE.
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