The Ministry of Textiles, Government of India is organizing a National Workshop on Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS) at the national capital today. The workshop aims to showcase the successes under ISDS, share experiences and obtain feedback from concerned stakeholders on how the scheme can better contribute to a skilled India.

The workshop will be inaugurated by the Union Minister of State for Textiles (I/C), Santosh Kumar Gangwar. The Textiles Minister will also inaugurate an Exhibition at the venue, namely India Habitat Centre. A brochure and a booklet on ISDS shall also be released by the Minister.

Secretary, Textiles, Dr. Sanjay Kumar Panda will launch the facility of online certificate generation through the centralized Management Information System (MIS) portal of ISDS. This innovative facility provides for easy, fast and seamless generation of certificates, promising to be a boon to both trainees as well as training agencies.

Awards shall be given on the occasion, to best performing implementing agencies and employers under the scheme.

After the inaugural session, a presentation shall be given on the journey of ISDS so far. This shall be followed by sessions on the convergence of ISDS with the 'Skill India' initiative; the role of state Governments in catalysing skill initiatives; standardization of courses, assessment and certification, and employment opportunities and challenges under ISDS.

The workshop thus aims to identify, disseminate, evolve and institutionalize best practices to improve the effectiveness of the scheme in building the skill capital of India's textile sector.

Integrated Skilled Development Scheme (ISDS) was introduced by Ministry of Textiles as a pilot in the last two years of the 11th Five Year Plan year 2010 -11, in order to address the manpower requirement of the diverse textile and related segments. The scheme has subsequently been scaled up during the 12th plan with a target of skilling 15 lakhs persons by the end of March 2017.

The Government provides a grant subsidy to the extent of 75% of project cost with a ceiling of Rs.10,000/- per trainee. As of now a total of 11.3 lakh training targets has been sanctioned under 76 projects to around 58 implementing agencies spread across India. The scheme has experienced significant progress over the last 5 years and around 4.20 lakh candidates have been successfully trained across diverse sectors like Apparel and Garments, Textiles, Handlooms, Handicrafts, Sericulture, technical textiles, Jute etc., informed ministry in a press release. During the year 2010, around six projects were sanctioned under the scheme which has increased progressively to 57 in the year 2014 and 76 in the year 2015-16, it said.