Government suspends further allocation under PMKVY 2.0 in 3 states

Govt noticed irregularities by the franchisee skill centres

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The government is believed to have suspended further allocation under the skilling scheme PMKVY 2.0 in three states including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan after finding irregularities like fraudulent enrolment of ghost candidates by the franchisee skill centres.

"After initial investigations, we found that as many as 40 per cent candidates enrolled for the vocational course under the scheme in UP, Haryana and Rajasthan only exist on paper," a senior government official said.

The official further said that in view of these irregularities, the Centre has decided to stop the allocations under the scheme in the three states and has ordered an enquiry into the matter.

According to another official, the irregularities like fraudulent enrolments came to light after it was found that the franchisees outsourced training of the candidates to third parties against the mandate of the PMKVY.

The franchisee centres were only permitted to invite investments in assets like land, building and investments.

However, the allocation of franchisee centres in other states under PMKVY continues and there is no plan to suspend them, the official said.

In July 2016, the Union Cabinet approved a revamped version of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) with an outlay of Rs 12,000 crore to impart skilling to one crore people in the four years between 2016-2020.

The revamped scheme called PMKVY 2.0 moved 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.

Asked about instances of irregularities being reported under the PMKVY, Union Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy said: "We had cases like that, we have looked into it but the PMKVY 2 is a robust, transparent and accountable scheme so we are happy with its performance and we learnt through the shortcomings of the PMKVY".

The minister said many issues regarding implementation of the scheme came up, therefore, it was completely revamped.

"... From a reward-based scheme where the candidates would get the cost of the training and the training cost will be transferred to the TP, now the TP has been made responsible so a complete reform has taken place," he said.

He was addressing a press conference on the ministry's achievements as the NDA government completed three years.