The Minister of State for Labour and Employment (I/C) Shri Oscar Fernandes has said today. He was addressing the 37th Meeting of National Council for Vocational Training here in New Delhi.

Shri Fernandes said that Training and Skill Development is being given top priority by the highest level in the Government and it has now become a national agenda. He said that a new scheme called Skill Development Initiative has been launched by the Government to train one million persons in the next five years and then one million every year. Under the Scheme, he said, training is provided in demand-driven short term courses which are based on Modular Employable Skills. The training cost for the successful candidate is borne by the Central Government. Till date, curricula of 340 modules have been developed, more than 60,000 persons have been trained/tested and 2154 Vocational Training Providers have been registered, Shri Fernandes informed.

The Minister also informed that the Planning Commission has already communicated their 'in-principle' approval for the two new schemes for establishing 1500 new ITIs and the other scheme for setting of 50,000 Skill Development Centres. These schemes were announced by the Prime Minister.

Giving details about the ongoing two major Schemes for upgradation of all the existing Government ITIs in the country, the Minister said that under the first Scheme, 500 ITIs are being upgraded into Centres of Excellence. Out of these, 100 ITIs are being upgraded through domestic funding at a cost of Rs. 160 crore and other 400 ITIs are being upgraded with the assistance of World Bank at a cost of about 1581 crore.

The Second Scheme for upgradation of remaining 1396 ITIs is being implemented through Public Private Partnership at a cost of about Rs. 3550 crore. Terming it as a path-breaking scheme, the Minister said that this kind of large-scale participation of private sector in the Government programmes has happened perhaps for the first time in a social sector programme. Under this Scheme, we have been able to associate in the Industry partners in the process of upgradation of 300 ITIs all over the country and have released an amount of Rs. 750 crore to these ITIs @ Rs. 2.5. crore per ITI, he said.

Emphasizing that quality of training should be of international standards, Shri Fernandes said that State Governments, Workers Union and Industry Associations must contribute actively and effectively to complement the Union Government's efforts for improving the Skill Development System in the country. He said that we have to improve our affiliation system in such a manner that neither trainees nor training provider face any difficulty and we should take steps to make the system fast, transparent and user friendly.

The issues discussed at the Meeting of NCVT include the change in cut-off dates for grant of affiliation to ITIs and ITCs, affiliation norms for opening Instructor Training Institute, Introduction of eligibility test at national level for candidates desirous of seeking job as instructor of ITIs, appointment of 20 per cent more regular instructors in ITIs/ITCs for their regular deputation of training and retraining etc.

On this occasion, the Minister also gave away the prizes to the winners of All India Skill Competition for Apprentices. BOSCH, Bangalore is winner of 78th competition and TATA Iron Steel Company, Jamshedpur is winner of 79th competition. For Craftsmen category, the Maharashtra State is winner of the 42nd All India Skill Competition for Craftsmen held in January 2007.#