Adding another feather to its success cap in the “Skilled in Odisha” campaign, the State has been reckoned as the best in implementing the rural skill development programme both at the national and international levels.
This was evident at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy in the Lok Seva Bhawan here on Tuesday. Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Principal Secretary Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh informed about this feat of the Stae.
“Because of applauding performance continuously over fiscal years of 2016-17 and 2017-18 in Deendayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushala Yojana (DDUJKY), the Union Government has recognised Odisha as the"Best Skilling State,” said the Secretary.
He also informed that Europe India Foundation for Excellence (EIFE) has also awarded Odisha as the “Best State in Rural Skill Development" in Global Skill Development Meet organised at the UNESCO headquarters of Paris. Because of the
quality training and innovations, Odisha has also been designated as National Resource Organization in the DDUJKY.
Reviewing the progress of the skilling and placement activities under DDUJKY, the Chief Secretary directed the Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM) to intensify the motivational activities at village level through contact with potential households having dropout children in the age group of 18-35. Tripathy also directed to focus on high retention level in different training programmes.
It was decided in the meeting that the individual candidate wise tracking and follow up would be taken up from the level of household to training, employment and post-employment status for one year.
Further, the Chief Secretary directed to set up three new Migration Support Centers (MSCs) at three places namely Hyderabad, Pune and Bhubaneswar for facilitation and post-placement support. Presently, three MSCs are operating at Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu, Bengaluru in Karnataka, and Bhiwadi in Rajasthan.
These centers register the skilled youths migrating for job, organise health camps for them, and provide them the legal literacy and emergency support. The centers remain in coordination with the employers and arrange weekly get togethers. The centers also provide handholding and grievance redressal support to the youths.
A three-year action plan from 2019-22 was discussed in the meeting. Target was fixed to train around 1,50,000 youths within three years under placement linked programmes of the DDUJKY with a financial outlay of around Rs 1,546 crore. Out of this, 50,000 youths would be trained in the fiscal year 2019-20.
ORMAS CEO Smruti Ranjan Pradhan appraised that in the year 2018-19 Odisha occupied the first position by training 41,308 youths and providing placements to 31,698 of them in organised sectors.
It was revealed that against the target of training 50,000 youths during the current fiscal, 20,213 youths were trained by September 27.
Presently, 144 skill training centers are operating across the State and two centers are operating outside the State under DDUJKY. The training spreads across the major sectors like apparel, IT and ITES, electrical, retail, tourism and hospitality, construction, healthcare, automotive, electronics, management, logistic and supply chain. The training period for different courses varies from three to twelve months.