Panaji : The Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) has asked Goa University to conduct a study on impact of training carried out through empanelled skill training providers under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) in the last one year and number of jobs generated through skill training and placement.
The evaluation study will use a detailed questionnaire for conducting a survey on the participants who attended the training programmes during the selected study period.
The NULM was implemented in areas under urban local bodies in the state from last year and around 1944 persons, selected by 14 urban local bodies (ULBs), were trained; however, there has been no evaluation done to understand whether the courses were effective or not. Over 25 skill-oriented courses are available for making the youth more employable as also to meet the educational and professional needs but the students mainly opted for courses like accounts assistant using tally followed by beauty therapy and hair styling, computer hardware assistant, spoken English and communication, food production and garment construction techniques.
Speaking to this daily, a GSUDA official said that “we have asked the Goa University to conduct a three-month long study to understand the impact of training on the participants -knowledge, skills and attitudes and also to understand whether the training programmes had affected the participants’ performance in the work environment back home.”
The state has empanelled four skill training providers-Bright Future, Digicom Computer Education, Agnel Vocational Training Centre and Infotech Computer Education to provide short-duration courses of five to eight months long.
Under ‘Employment through Skill Training and Placement’ component of NULM, an expenditure of Rs 15,000 per person is allowed on training of urban poor. Under revised norms, cost of training has been increased by 5 per cent. To be eligible under the scheme, the candidate should be a resident of city or town with an income below Rs 1 lakh per annum.
Under ‘Social Mobilization and Institution Development’ through formation of self-help groups for training members and hand-holding, an initial support of Rs 10,000 is given for each group. For registered area level federations of such groups, assistance of Rs 50,000 is provided.
The target is to cover 3500 youth from 14 ULB areas for skill development training during the financial year 2017-18.
Urban poor are also assisted with interest subsidy of 5-7 per cent for setting up individual micro enterprises with a loan of up to Rs 2 lakh and for group enterprises with a loan limit of up to Rs 10 lakh.
The GSUDA official said that “they would also provide training and support for technical professions for which we have proposed to the director of skill development and entrepreneurship to take up short duration courses in their ITI centres across the state.”
The objective of this scheme under NULM is designed to provide skills to unskilled urban poor as well as to upgrade their existing skills. The programme will provide skill training to urban poor to enable them in setting up self-employment ventures and getting salaried jobs in the private sector.
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