Chennai : The AIADMK government is all set to scale up its skill development programme to provide technical vocational training to about 12 lakh rural youth over the next five years.
Expected to be announced in the forthcoming budget, the scheme would seek to blend the Central government sponsored Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), implemented through the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), and the ongoing state programme, started way back in 2012-13 with an initial outlay of Rs 50 crore.
State labour secretary Mangat Ram Sharma said, “We are working on a mega plan for skill development. Tamil Nadu is a pioneer in this sector. We initiated the scheme much before the Centre embarked on it. Over the years, the allocation for the state scheme has gone up to Rs 150 crore per annum. In the proposed scheme, we will get 25% grant from the Centre’s PMKVY scheme. The quantum of the state’s contribution will be finalized in the budget”. The state is already implementing yet another skill development programme in health, automobile, retail, hospitality and light engineering sectors with Rs 100 crore funding from Japan International Cooperation Agency, he said.
Sources said the government’s idea is to train about 60,000 youth in the first year and scale it up to 1.5 lakh people in the second year and still more in subsequent years. It is estimated that about 70% of them would get employed. Apparently, the proposal has been mooted by a senior party functionary from western Tamil Nadu with a view to strengthening the AIADMK base at the grass-roots level, especially rural Tamil Nadu, where about 59% of the state’s youth reside. It is also the AIADMK’s response to its fast eroding base.
Availability of a large pool of skilled manpower would ultimately attract industries into the state, a concept note on the project says. The political tinge of the project is evident from the concept note that suggests training 1,000 youth per assembly constituency per year. They could either be employed or become self-employed. To facilitate this, there would be a placement and entrepreneurship cell. Overall, the proposal is expected to cost around Rs 800 crore per annum, said a source.
Apart from tapping Central funds, the proposal seeks to draw resources from the CSR budget of corporates and from multi-lateral agencies like the World Bank and ADB.
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