NSDC targets five lakh apprenticeship contracts in one year

The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is aiming to facilitate five lakh apprenticeship contracts in the next one year, its MD and CEO Manish Kumar said on Tuesday.

"It (the contracts) earlier focused on manufacturing but now this has been extended to the services sector. Job roles were earlier defined by the government, but now industries can," he said, adding, that a scheme was rolled out to support industries to take up apprenticeship programmes.

With a target of 50 lakh apprentices to be trained by 2019-20, the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) was launched in 2016 with an outlay of Rs 10,000 crore.

Kumar said that earlier, the responsibility for implementing the programme was with the Director General of Training (DGT) under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE).

"Now, this has got expanded as NSDC and state governments become part of it. Several agencies are being involved to scale it up," he said.