Guidelines soon on skilling up disabled youth: Birender Singh

The central government was planning to provide specialized skills to rural job guarantee workers and would soon notify guidelines on imparting special skills to disabled youth, Union Rural Development Minister Birender Singh said Tuesday.

He said imparting top-notch skills to such workers and their families would not only help their transition from informal jobs to more jobs in the organised sector, but "also change the meaning of life and existence for millions of poor people".

"My ministry will soon notify guidelines to provide special skills to the youth challenged by disability. Guidelines are being designed to see that such brave youth have access to sustainable and decent work so that can live productive lives," Singh told an audience of 4,000 people who gathered at the Thakur Vishwanath Shahdev Indoor Stadium here.

At least 215 young men and women - from the left-wing-extremism-affected districts of West Singbhum, Palamau, Latehar, Chatra, Garhwa and Gumla districts of Jharkhand - received certificates for successful training, under a project called Roshni.

Notably, most of the trainees have landed jobs in well-known organisations, a government official said.

The first batch of trainees received skills training ranging from counter sales to hospitality to automobile manufacturing and machining, IT-Enabled Services, IT and soft skills, and were provided with the state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities at six training centres in Ranchi.