Govt to start skills training under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana in 600 districts

Government will start skills training in 600 districts across all states barring four under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana-3.0 launched on Friday. This will be followed by a five-year PMKVY in 2021-22 with an enhanced target of skilling 1.5 crore youth.
Under the scheme government will train 8 lakh candidates over next three months with an outlay of Rs 948.90 crore with focus on Covid-related skills. As per the plan, the Centre will strengthen district skill committees to identify and cater to local skilling needs under the scheme which will be demand based.

The scheme, which will be rolled out for the current financial year with a lag because of the pandemic, will see a significant spillover as the training requires a minimum of three months. The current fiscal will end on March 31, 2021.

“We have decentralised the scheme. District skills councils will play an important role in implementation of PMKVY-3.0 working in line with the Centre and the National Skills Development Corporation,” skills development minister Mahendra Nath Pandey said.

Training will be imparted through 729 Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKKs), empaneled non-PMKK training centres and more than 200 industrial training institutes.

Training, however, will not be provided in four states including Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, as these states have not granted permission for skills training either due to Covid-19 related local restriction or local elections.

The government had launched the PMKVY scheme in 2015 and revamped it in 2016 to impart skills to one crore persons by 2020 at an allocation of Rs 12,000 crore. However, the targets were nearly achieved with just Rs 7000 crore with large scale certification under the recognition of the prior learning component of the scheme.