The vocational training for 256 shortlisted aspirants for various skill development programmes run under ‘Utthan’ scheme by the State Urban Development Agency (SUDA) is being delayed for the last nine months. No final schedule has been declared yet for a start of the training programmes.
Social and Community Development Officer (Urban Implementation Governance) Project Implementation Unit, Pallavi Joshi informed that training programmes were conducted in three batches a year and said that the application forms for the third batch of the skill development training programmes under ‘Utthan’ were received and shortlisted in July 2013.
As per norms the training programmes were supposed to be started within a month after the registration procedure but due to various problems the training programme has been protractedly delayed with a final schedule not being release yet.
Joshi stated that earlier a committee, including District Magistrate (DM), Chief Development Officer (CDO) and officers from MCD, was mainly dealing with the approval and other tasks related to the applicants. But as the list was declared unsatisfactory by the CDO, no approval was given to it. later a new committee was formed by the nodal agency MCD, including Mukhya Nagar Adhikari, Additional Mukhya Nagar Adhikari and excluding DM and CDO this time.
The selected applicants were supposed to undergo vocational training in 16 trades including travel and tourism, hospitality, housekeeping, mechanic, mobile repairing, fitter, civil construction mason, computer hardware, mechanic, computer based accountant, data entry operator, BPO for call centre, beauty and health management, hospital and nursing assistant, retailing, marketing and sales. This vocational training is being imparted by around 10 private institutes and companies including Mass Info-tech Society, Divya Prem Mission, CMC limited, GNG Education, VlCC, IACM Smart learning ltd, IlFS, Centum learning and Core Education.
Regarding the main objective of the scheme, Joshi said that it was a skill development and training programme for urban poor under Utthan which was earlier known as STEP-UP, a component of Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY). Now the programme would be known as National Urban livelihood Mission (NUlM). The mission is aimed at urban poverty alleviation through gainful employment to the urban unemployed or underemployed poor and empowering the community to tackle the issues of urban poverty through suitable self managed community structures and capacity building programmes.