India, US tie up for training youth

Union Labour & Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge has stated that the Centre has entered into an MoU with the United States for providing vocational training to Indian youth.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a programme here at the weekend, Kharge stated that the MoU aims at strengthening co-ordination in skill development, generating employment for the youths, providing occupational safety of the labourers and protecting the health of the labourers working in mines.

This training programme aims at providing vocational training to more than 50 million youths in next 11 years, he noted.

Besides, the government has also inked MoU with Germany to make youths industry-ready. The entire world is looking at India as the ‘Country with potential excellence’, hence emphasis has been given to developing human resources with the aim of inclusive growth in the society, he added.

He said, India recently inked as MoU with Afghanistan and the instructors will visit Afghanistan to provide training to the youths there.

This is for the first time that the Labour Department had crossed domestic boundaries and is seeking co-ordination from the USA and European countries to empower youth, he added.

Answering a query, Kharge stated that a meeting has been called by his department on March 1 in New Delhi wherein 35 nations would participate. The meeting will evaluate the employment opportunities for Indian youth in those countries and the skills required. Taking the opinion of the foreign delegates, skill development programme for the youths would be formulated, he replied.

Referring to the Union Budget, Kharge said, last fiscal, the Centre allotted Rs 1,300 crore for the Labour department and this year the department had sought Rs 2,000 crore. There are all possibilities of allotting the demanded fund to the department.

When quizzed on trade unions giving a call for a nationwide bundh on February 28, Kharge appealed to the trade union leaders to call-off the strike and held a meeting to solve the problems faced by them. He said, the one-day bundh would severely affect the business and would cause huge loss to the exchequer.