'Skill development infrastructure in North-East insufficient'

Skill development infrastructure in the country's North-East is insufficient to meet the requirements of the region but no plan has been finalised to set up ITIs through PPP mode due to less availability of private partners, Parliament was informed today.
There were a total of 80 ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) in the North-East. Out of these, 72 were government-run and the remaining eight by private players, Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge) Rajiv Pratap Rudy said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.
"Skill development infrastructure in the North-East is not sufficient to meet the requirement of the people in the region. Government has taken steps to establish new ITIs in the region, which is a continuous process," the Minister said.

On whether the government proposed to explore public private partnership (PPP) route for establishing ITIs in the region, Rudy said: "Due to comparatively low availability of private players in the North Eastern region, at present there is no finalised plan to establish ITIs in PPP mode."
Replying to another query, he said as on February 28, 2015, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) had 207 approved partners, which together had 2,904 operational NSDC partner centres, including 676 mobiles centres.
These centres cover 471 districts across 28 states and five union territories.

In addition, Rudy said 1,277 ITIs have been upgraded through PPP mode and 9,688 ITIs have been set up on private domain across the country.

A total of Rs 815 crore has been disbursed to private training providers by NSDC till date with Rs 643 crore as loan support, Rs 150 crore as grants and Rs 22 crore as equity.
The Minister further said that the Directorate General of Employment and Training (DGE&T), under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, had released a sum of Rs 3,067.5 crore as interest free loan to Institute Management Committees led by private partners for upgradation of 1,277 ITIs.