Centre says over 38 lakh urban poor given job skills

About 38.32 lakh urban poor have so far been provided with skill development training with assistance from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.

Minister of State for Urban Development and HUPA Babul Supriyo provided these statistics in a written reply to Rajya Sabha today.

He said that skill development of urban poor to enable either self-employment or salaried employment was undertaken under the 'Skill Training for Employment Promotion Amongst Urban Poor (STEP-UP)' of erstwhile Swarn Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojana launched in 1997 and the 'Employment through Skill Training & Placement' component of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) introduced in 2013.

Under STEP-UP, 35.26 lakh urban poor were assisted to upgrade their skills while another 3.06 lakh were helped under NULM.

Madhya Pradesh led the list of performers having assisted 5.06 lakh urban poor followed by Maharashtra (4.86 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (4.51 lakh), Karnataka (4.08 lakh), Tamil Nadu (3.33 lakh), Andhra Pradesh (3.25 lakh), Gujarat (2.22), Bihar(2.11 lakh), West Bengal (1.98 lakh) and Rajasthan (1.07 lakh).

Supriyo said that the Ministry of HUPA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Skill Development Corporation for facilitating the training of two lakh urban poor through states and union territories.