Government scheme offers up to Rs15,000 for acquiring job skills
17 Aug 2013
The union government on Friday launched its ambitious National Skill Certification and Monetary Reward Scheme, under which a million youth will be trained in job skills every year, with a certificate and an award of up to Rs15,000 for those who acquire the skills.
''It is a sort of subsidy for people who are able to get proper skills,'' Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said at the launch of the scheme, called the Student Training & Assessment award (STAR).
The government aims to impart skills to a million youth a year at a cost of Rs1,000 crore each. ''I want to assure there will be no shortage of funds if more youth gets skills for employment in industry,'' finance minister P Chidambaram said at a function in New Delhi.
The scheme will be controlled by the National Skill Development Council that focuses on 21 sectoral skill councils. The council has developed national occupational standards for certification of the skills to be provided by training institutes.
All institutions providing training for the state or the central government will be part of the scheme. The new institutes will have to get themselves accredited with sector skill councils to avail of the benefits. The training programmes would be at least 30 days and will include social skills like hygiene, health and communication.
The trained youth will have to appear for skill certification, and if they clear the test they will be eligible for direct transfer of the reward money into their bank accounts. The reward for passing manufacturing courses is Rs10,000-15,000 and for other courses Rs7,500-10,000.
Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh announced that an individual of a household, which has completed 100 days of work under rural employment guarantee scheme, would be sponsored for skill training. Around 8-10 per cent of 45 million households whose members got a job under the NREGA (rural employment scheme) would be eligible for the skill training.
The United Progressive Alliance government launched the national skill development mission in 2008. The scheme was slow to start because of wrangling between the human resources development and labour ministries. Now, the finance ministry has been put directly in charge.