SME Times News Bureau | 29 Jul, 2019
Union Minister for Skill Development and
Entrepreneurship Mahendra Nath Pandey on Sunday met Sarbananda
Sonowal, Chief Minister of Assam to discuss how the Centre and State
can further the Skill India Mission in the State.
The two ministers discussed and agreed to
collaborate to set up the recently announced Skill University in the State
aligning it to the national skill standards ensuring common framework and
delivery in quality of training.
This meeting was in addition to a closed-door
review meeting, organized by Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
in Guwahati, on the work done so far in the North Eastern states of the
country, on Saturday.
The meeting was presided over by Pandey. The
meeting was attended by dignitaries from States including Skills Ministers
namely - Chandra Mohan Patowary,Minister, Assam; Tumke Bagra, Minister,
Arunachal Pradesh; Radhey Shyam, Minister, Manipur and Imnatiba, Minister,
Nagaland.
The Minister reviewed all programs and schemes
implemented across the eight states of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram,
Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, and Tripura.Thevarious
schemes and programme, management structures and processes, enhanced
infrastructure, and local challenges encountered within these initiatives were
discussed at this session.
The success of reaching out to 2.5 lakh youth is
the biggest accomplishment for the ministry to be able to move towards
achieving the aims of Skill India Mission, as envisioned by Prime Minister Shri
Narendra Modi.
Speaking at the meeting, Pandey said,
“I feel such institutionalized interactions like this one between Central
and State leaders, and policy makers, are crucial to the strategy of bringing
in synergies and convergence across all initiatives of skill development in the
country, and transform the lives of our youth.”
The program and schemes like Pradhan
Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendra (PMKK), Jan
Shikshan Sansthan, Apprenticeship, Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and
National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs) were reviewed basis the
consolidated data collected in past 4 years.
Apart from talking about the performance metrics
of the schemes and initiatives, the agenda of the meeting was also to discuss
about various other important factors like building capacity of state skill
missions and focus on job creation via tourism.
On strengthening of the ITIs and NSTIs in the
North-East region, it was discussed that there are 73 ITIs with seating
capacity of 17,000, of which around 13,000 cater to the engineering or
technical trades like electrician, auto-mechanics etc. There is a shortage of
facility for training of trainers at these facilities. Ministry of
Skill Development and Entrepreneurship decided to set up an NSTI in the region.
Manipur Government assured all support in setting up of the institute to fill
in this gap, including provision of land. MSDE has also released Rs60
lakhs towards upgrading of training equipment in Manipur.
Further, it was also decided that there will be a
renewed focus on running local trade based short term courses
(agriculture, fisheries etc.) in the NSTIs to reduce migration of labor from
the State.
Pandey also visited the Indian Institute
of Entrepreneurship (IIE) Guwahati which operates under the aegis of
MSDE and has been focusing on creating an entrepreneurial climate through
entrepreneurship education.
In order to impact the grassroot and rural areas,
the Institute would identify potential segments like
agri/horticulture, and food processing, floriculture, crafts and handloom and
handicrafts, bee-keeping, emerging service sectors like adventure tourism and
use the cluster approach to deliver services for economics of scale
and sustainability and ensuring the upscaling of
enterprises.
The Hon’ble Minister, MSDE also visited
the North East Skill Center running under Assam Skill Development Mission
and was happy to see facilities being offered at the institute for the youth of
the region.
He said that it is important that we should match
the offering under Skill India Mission to the aspirations of the youth of
today, keeping in mind the changing time and new age skills that are being
introduced to today’s work culture.
He also said that the youth of North East is very
passionate and vibrant and have innovative ideas contributing to the
sustainable development of the country and their personal growth.
These should be encouraged at each level by both
Center and State government and more opportunities of engagement should be
created for them.