The Meeting of Consultative Committee of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on the theme of “Skill Development” held under the Chairmanship of Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot. Ministers of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar, Vijay Sampla and Ramdas Athawale were also present.Addressing on the occasion Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot said that the Department of Social Justice has a social mandate to bring social and economical empowerment of their target groups through skill training by three corporations namely National Scheduled Caste Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC), National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation (NBCFDC) and National Safai Karamcharis Finance And Development Corporation (NSKFDC). Based on inputs received from the corporations, a Skill Action Plan was drawn and 56 MoUs with different Sector Skill Council have been signed to achieve the objective of skilling.He further said that the Government has brought common norms to maintain uniformity and standardization in the implementation of various skill development schemes implemented by itself or through its agencies. Common norms are defined as any domain specific demand led skill training activity leading to employment or any outcome oriented activity that enables a participation to acquire a skill, duly assessed and certified by an independent third party agency, and which enable them to get wage/self-employment leading to increased earning and improved working conditions, such as getting formal certification for hitherto informal skills and moving from informal to formal sector jobs. This will enable them to get wage/self employment placement and in getting formal certifications.
All the skill development courses have to fulfill the criteria of common norms. Accordingly, all the courses of these corporations are also fulfilling the common norms. The objectives of Skill Development Training Programmes of NSFDC are to provide quality skill development training leading to employability of the target groups for their socio-economic development; to cover more number of women in appropriate skill training programmes and to make efforts to provide gainful employment to trained workforce with commensurate/adequate compensation.The objective of NBCFDC is to impart skill development training to the target groups so that eligible member of Backward Classes may engage in development activities by way of self employment or wage employment.The objective of NSKFDC is to provide job/self employment oriented vocational/technical skill development training to the target group as per common norms by MSDE and sectors covered are Apparel, Telecom, Plastics, Beauty, Furniture & Fittings, Power Construction, Media and Domestic Workers.So far, the statutory provision for skill training of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) is concerned, the section 19 of the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act recognizes the need of skill development of PwDs. The National Action Plan (NAP) for skill Training for Persons with Disabilities launched by the Department in March 2015 meets this objective.The Members of Parliament who participated in the Consultative Committee Meeting include: Shri Hariom Singh Rathore, Shri K.H. Muniyappa, Dr. (Smt.) Mamtaz Sanghamita, Smt. Vasanthi M. and Shri Vinod Chavda (All Lok Sabha); and Shri Ahamed Hassan, Shri K. Somaprasad and Dr. L. Hanumanthaiah (All Rajya Sabha).Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Smt. Neelam Sawhney, Secretary, DEPwD, Smt. Shakuntala D. Gamlin and senior officers of the Ministry also attended the meeting.
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