The Central Government is all set to prepare a master plan for enabling the State of Punjab to emerge as a hub of skill training within a fortnight.The announcement was made by the Union Skill Development Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Friday after conceding to the demand made by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
Rudy said, “The Ministry has already done the sectoral mapping of imparting skill development in the State besides identifying targets of providing this training in various sectors.”Rudy, who called on the Chief Minister at Kapurthala house, held detailed deliberations with Badal regarding the efforts being made by the Centre to promote skill training across the country.
Expressing concern over the mounting unemployment in Punjab, Badal said that the only silver lining in this dark tunnel was imparting of skill education to the youth so that they could be gainfully self-employed.Badal, soliciting the support and cooperation from the Centre, urged the Union Minister to formulate special plan for giving thrust to skill education in the State.
The State Government has already set up Punjab Skill Development Mission under Badal’s chairmanship which acts as an umbrella organisation for implementation of the various skill development schemes in a big way.Badal apprised Rudy that schemes of five departments have been transferred to this mission and rest were in pipeline adding that the Mission has set a target of providing skill training to two lakh youth per year.
He also asked the Union Minister to expedite the process of approving proposal for setting up 43 ITIs and 250 skill development centers in the State. He also underscored the need for speeding up the process of finalisation and implementation of the uniform cost norms for Skill Development scheme of various Ministries. Chief Minister also informed Rudy that Punjab was first State in the country to have signed Memorandum of Understanding with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) for setting up Multi Skill Development Centers in the State.
“These centers would be set up across the State. Mandate has already been given to NSDC for selection of training partner in a center coming up at ludhiana. However, the matter needed to be expedited,” he said.
Responding to the issues raised by the CM, Rudy said that the Centre was mulling to transform the ITIs across the country into Multi Skill Development Centers, so that the States could be benefited from it.