All 36 Indian states/UTs to participate in skill development scheme 'SANKALP'
SANKALP is a centrally-sponsored, $675 million scheme to implement the mandate of the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM).
Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union Minister of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, said all 36 Indian states and union territories have submitted their consent for participation in the ministry’s World Bank loan-assisted Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP) programme, according to a government statement.
Speaking at the first programme governance board meeting, Pandey added that first year grants have been released by the ministry to nine states.
They are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Maharashtra, Manipur, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh.
"In addition to these, state grants of Rs 10 lakh each are also released to 117 aspirational districts under Aspirational Skilling Abhiyaan. Further, a robust IT system named 'Skill India Portal' has been developed under SANKALP to capture and converge skill data," the minister said.
SANKALP is a centrally-sponsored scheme which aims to implement the mandate of the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM). SANKALP has total project size of $675 million, including World Bank assistance of $500 million, in two tranches of $250 million each.
The scheme has a six-year implementation schedule, and aims to create convergence among all skill training activities, improve quality of skill development programmes through building a pool of quality trainers and assessors, model curriculum and content, establish robust monitoring and evaluation system for skill training programs, and more.
Mahendra Nath Pandey also said efforts need to be taken for strengthening the District Skilling ecosystem and the perception of youth towards skilling needs to be improved. He suggested District Skill Committees (DSC) should play a pivotal role in counselling youth in their districts.
Raj Kumar Singh carried forward these suggestions and said, "The skill training centres should have quality infrastructure and the certificate issued to the candidate should be valued. SANKALP can assist in converging the skilling efforts across different schemes of the ministries. Further, the demand mapping of skilling requirements across sectors and geographies needs to be ascertained."
(Source: Press Information Bureau, Government of India)
(Edited by Dipti Nair)
