Indien: Regierung fördert Unternehmertum

Govt to launch 'Udyamita' scheme to promote entrepreneurship: Union Minister

Government will launch a new scheme 'Udyamita' to integrate entrepreneurship with education, Union Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy said on Tuesday.

"We are launching a new initiative called the Udyamita Scheme and this would cover about 3,000 educational institutes with assistance of Wadhwani Foundation. This would happen in 2,200 colleges, 500 ITIs and 300 high schools where entrepreneurship teachers would be trained from outside and positioned in the educational institutes to integrate entrepreneurship in education, to assist students to build up entrepreneurship," Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rudy told reporters here.

A provision of Rs 50 crore has been made to roll out the scheme in the first year. Elaborating on announcements related to skill development in the Union Budget, Rudy said 1,500 multi-skill training institutes will be set up in public-private-partnership mode over the next three years covering a large number of unserved blocks across the country.

Laying out the objective of skilling one crore youth over the next three years, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced a raft of measures, including setting up 1,500 multi-skill training institutes and National Board for Skill Development Certification.

Jaitley earmarked a sum of Rs 1,700 crore for setting up 1,500 multi-skill training institutes in the country and scaling up Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna. Rudy said a national portal on skills will be launched by the month-end.

"Apart from mobile training vans in rural areas, we also aim to have a national portal on skills which will have all the aspects related to employment including information about training or the Labour Market Information System (LMIS) which is to be launched by March 31. We are also planning to set up a community radio network across the country," he added.

Asked whether he was satisfied with the functioning of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Rudy said, "NSDC is a part of us. Total revamp has been undertaken by NSDC board... NSDC will be made more accountable."

NSDC had earlier accepted resignations of MD and CEO Dilip Chenoy and COO Atul Bhatnagar, paving the way for restructuring of the skill development body.

The resignations of the two top functionaries last year came amid reports that the government, which has taken up the skill development initiative on top priority, was not happy with the functioning of the body as it was not in pace with demand and was lagging in strengthening private partnerships.

Besides, Rudy said the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship will shortly sign MoUs with Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation to harness the existing infrastructure of Airports Authority of India and other bodies.

The minister said the government is looking to introduce a Bill to provide statutory status to the National Skills Qualification Framework in the monsoon session of Parliament.

"In the next session of Parliament hopefully we will be able to bring in a legislation to provide statutory status to National Skills Qualification Framework," Rudy said. He stated that 18 lakh youths have already enrolled in the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) in last eight months.

Rudy added that the government has partnered with World Bank to upgrade industrial training in the country. This entails Skill Training for Employability Leveraging Public Private Partnership (STELPPP) with the proposed assistance of $1 billion from World Bank and Skill Training for Industries Value Enhancement (STRIVE) with an estimated cost of $537.50 million.

The minister said the formation of the National Skill Certification Board is another big step in further strengthening the skill ecosystem. It will see representation from both government and industry, which will collectively enable a joint framework for quality skill assessment.

He said with the implementation of common norms with effect from April 1, 2016, there will be more synergies that will be seen across ministries, departments and states on skill development.