Under the National Action Plan (NAP) for Skill Development of Persons with Disabilities, 75,640 PwDs have been trained since 2016-17. This year the target is to empower 90,000 PwDs
Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawarchand Gehlot believes that employment is the key to empowerment and said that he was aggressively pushing skill training of Persons with Disabilities as part of his Government’s mandate to frame schemes that would enhance their rehabilitation and make them stakeholders in the mainstream discourse.
He was addressing a national workshop on skill development for Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan), which was organised by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on July 3. The day-long workshop aimed to provide a platform to all stakeholders ranging from training partners to policy makers as well as employers. Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan also graced the event as the guest of honour. Other participants at the the workshop included Shakuntala D. Gamlin, Secretary, DEPwD, senior officers of DEPwD, representatives from corporate sectors, both private and public, state governments and empanelled training centres of DEPwD.
The DEPwD, in collaboration with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, launched the National Action Plan (NAP) for Skill Development of PwDs in March, 2015. DEPwD implements the Scheme for Implementation of Right of PwDs Act (SIPDA) which has a component for Skill Development of PwDs.
Gehlot said, “Under NAP, 75,640 PwDs have been trained since 2016-17 and this year the target is to impart skill training to 90,000 PwDs. The Skill Development programme for PwDs is implemented through the training partners empanelled with this department and also through its national institutes, their composite regional centres and also through National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation (NHFDC).” He further informed that till date, 258 training partners spread across 28 states and one UT have been empanelled with DEPwD to impart skill training to PwDs. Of these 258 training partners, 26 are government organisations and 232 are non-government organisations. During the last four years, as many as 1.4 lakh PwDs have been trained under the Skill Development /Vocation Training programme of the Department. “Bringing a synergy among all these three components i.e. ability of a particular category of PwD, local market demand and industry requirement is also a challenge while devising course curriculum for PwDs,” added Gehlot.
Pradhan felt that the creation of adequate placement opportunities is the biggest challenge for effective implementation of the skill development programme. Gamlin added, “With a view to create a society inclusive of PwDs, it is imperative to develop schemes and programmes to enhance their skills to enable them to meet job requirements.”
The workshop deliberated upon all issues of PwDs and discussed workable solutions in identifying core areas for skill development, the possibility of evolving a mechanism for appropriate mapping of categories of disabilities vis-a-vis industrial requirement and promoting a positive attitude in the private sector to consider PwDs as a valuable workforce.