Here’s Smriti Irani’s Rs 1,300 Cr plan to upskill 10 lakh youth in 3 years

India’s textiles and apparels industry is one of its oldest. The country is the world’s second-largest exporter of textiles and apparels. India Brand Equity Foundation data shows the industry is a significant contributor to the economy, and one of the largest sources of job creation in the country, employing about 45 million people directly.

However, people employed in the organised as well as unorganised segments of the industry still face skill gaps. To address this gap and to supplement efforts initiated through the Special Package for Garments and Made-ups, the government approved the Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector (SCBTS) for the entire value chain of textiles (except spinning and weaving in the organised sector), in three years from 2017-18 to 2019-20.

The focus will lie on apparel and garmenting, knitting, metal handicraft, textile and handloom, handicraft and carpet, among others. 

The Rs 1,300 crore initiative, known as “समर्थ (Samarth)”, signifies the broad objective of skilling youth for gainful and sustainable employment in the textile sector. It aims to train 10 lakh people, out of which 9 lakh will be from the organised sector, and one lakh will be from the traditional sector.

Textiles minister Smriti Irani announced in August 2019 that out of 18 selected states, 16 state governments signed MoUs with the Textile Ministry.

The 18 selected states include Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Mizoram, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Karnataka, Odisha, Manipur, Haryana, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand. However, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha did not sign the MoU. 

“It has been the endeavour of the Prime Minister that for a new India, we ensure that each and every citizen who seeks resources for sustenance is skilled, and it is in this endeavour in the sector of textiles that Samarth took shape,” Irani said. 

She observed that Tamil Nadu, especially the Tirupur cluster, desires more skilling opportunities. The number of beneficiaries in Tamil Nadu is estimated at 1,400, including the textiles and handloom segment.

Highlighting that 75 percent of those who work in the textile sector are women, Irani said, "The MUDRA scheme has seen that 70 percent of the beneficiaries are women, and state representatives should look at district-wise tailoring opportunities for women as part of the outreach for skilling across states."

Objectives and implementation

Government information indicates the scheme's primary objective is to provide demand-driven, placement-oriented National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF)-compliant skilling programmes to incentivise and supplement efforts of the industry in creating jobs in the organised textile and related sectors.

Another objective is to promote skilling and skill upgradation in the traditional sectors of handlooms, handicrafts, sericulture, and jute. It also seeks to enable provision of sustainable livelihood either by wage or self-employment to all sections of the society across the country.

These skilling programmes are implemented through institutions and organisations of the Ministry of Textiles or state governments, which have training infrastructure and placement tie-ups with the textile industry. Apart from this, reputed training institutions, NGOs, societies, trusts, corporates, startups, and other organisations active in the industry are also part of the implementation process.

The scheme will adopt an Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system, with minimum 80 percent attendance for assessment. Trainers with Training of Trainers (ToT) certification by RSA/SSCs will be part of the upskilling process. There will also be CCTV recording for the entire training programme and assessment process.

Third-party assessment and certification by assessment agencies empaneled by RSA will be part of it, as well as placement-linked skilling programme with mandatory wage employment in the organised sector (70 percent), traditional sector (50 percent), and post-placement tracking for one year.

A centralised web-based Management Information System (MIS) has also been put in place for monitoring and implementation of the scheme. The MIS will act as an integrated platform for registration and empanelment of implementing agencies.

The programme will also feature random physical verification of active training centres, NSQF-aligned courses, and real-time scheme information publicised on the Ministry of Textiles website, and call centres (helplines) setup to collect feedback.

Further, a mobile app will be used by different stakeholders to ease out the monitoring and implementation mechanism.

For more features and details of the scheme, please click here.

How to contact:

Ministry of Textiles

Udyog Bhawan 

New Delhi-110011 

Ph:+91-011-23061030

Email : [email protected]

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