Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Shri Giriraj Singh has called for need-based skill mapping for employment and training to India’s youth, mainly in the rural areas. Noting that the quality of job training is important, the Minister urged to explore means to see how best the traditional trades can be integrated with electronic, education and training, IT & BPO, and tourism and hospitality sectors to create more employment opportunities for the youth in the country.
The Minister was speaking after opening the new campus of the National Academy of Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institute (RUDEST) – NAR at Kumbalagodu in Bengaluru recently.
Chief Minister of Karnataka, Shri Basavaraj Bommai, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Union Minister of State for Rural Development, Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution, Sri Faggan Singh Kulaste were present at the opening ceremony.
Union Minister of State for Rural Development and Steel, Dr. C N Ashwath Narayan, Minister of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, and Livelihoods of Karnataka State, Sri S T Somasekhara, Minister of Co-operation of Karnataka State and Dr. Veerendra Heggade, MP and President, NAR joined the inaugural event.
Shri Giriraj Singh said the Rural Self Employment Training Institutes – RSETIs have a significant role in building India into a major human resources hub and added that RSETIs have trained 44 lakh youths of which nearly about 31 lakh candidates have settled so far. The Minister also informed that of the total candidates trained, about 29 lakhs are women candidates, over 66 %, which proves that RSETIs are giving a lot of importance to “Women Empowerment”.
Dr. Giriraj Singh cited a United Nations report that says in the coming 20 years, India’s workforce would grow by 32 percent while the overall global manpower would dip by four percent. He said that RSETIs are following up with the Banks and Financial Institutions to make available the required credit to the trained candidates for their successful settlement. 14.28 Lakh trained candidates were credit linked and the cumulative credit disbursed is to the tune of Rs.7200 crores. The Minister added that the average level of credit linkage of RSETI-trained candidates is 51%.
A sum of Rs 25 crores has been approved for the project of the new campus of NAR in Bengaluru. The State Government has allotted 3.5 acres of land. Currently, 590 RSETIs are functioning, covering 572 districts spreading over 27 States and six Union Territories. These include 33 RSETIs in Karnataka who have trained 3.49 lakh unemployed youths. RSETIs are sponsored by 24 banks including banks in public, private, and co-operative sectors, and Garmin Banks.
In 1982, Canara Bank, erstwhile Syndicate Bank, and SDME Trust, Dharmasthala pioneered the unique concept of Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institute (RUDSETI) to address the problem of unemployment amongst the rural youth in the country under the leadership of Dr. D. Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari, Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala. The Ministry of Rural Development has since replicated the RUDSETI model across the country and advised banks to set up Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETI) in each of their Lead District. The National Academy of RUDSETI-NAR, set up in 2008 entered a Memorandum of Understanding with the Rural Development Ministry in 2011 for providing training to youths in self-employment ventures.
Earlier, Shri Giriraj Singh formally opened the Hostel Block while Shri Bommai inaugurated the Admin Block of the new campus. The Chief Minister also addressed the gathering.
Shri Shailesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, Rural Development, Government of India, Shri Karma Zimpa Bhutia, Joint Secretary, of the Ministry of Rural Development, senior officers of the Government of Karnataka, and top bank executives attended the event.
An experience-sharing session of successful RSETI trainees and the distribution of bank loans to entrepreneurs also formed part of the program.
