Cabinet approves Rs 12,000 crore for skill development

Target is to impart skills to 10 million people over the next four years

The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved Rs 12,000 crore for the second phase of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana or PMKVY to impart skills to 10 million people over the next four years. It has also attached a quarterly review system for skill centres to fix accountability.

"Skill training would be done based on industry-led standards aligned to the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF)," an official statement said.

During PMKVY-1 in last financial year, the government trained some 1.97 million people against its target of 2.4million.

PMKVY will impart fresh training to six million youth and certify four million people who have acquired skills non-formally under the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

Financial support to trainees will be given in the form of travel allowance and by taking care of boarding and lodging costs. Post-placement support will be given directly to the beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

"The scheme, completely aligned to the common norms as notified earlier, would move to a grant-based model where the training and assessment cost would be directly reimbursed to training providers and assessment bodies in accordance with the common norms," the release said.

The Cabinet today cleared the Revised Cost Estimate (RCE) of Rs 7,290.62 crore for the ongoing Hydroelectric Project (HEP) in Bhutan.

"The total cost escalation for the project, at this stage, is Rs 3,512.82 crore," said an official statement.

Further, The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) today approved transfer of shares by sick PSU ITI Ltd to Special National Investment Fund, to meet Sebi's minimum public shareholding requirement.

It also approved amendment to a bill for changing the name of Rajendra Central Agricultural University to Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University.