India has potential to be world's skill capital: Rural Development Minister

India has potential to be the world's "skill capital", Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh said on Tuesday as his ministry signed an MoU with 19 "Captive Employers" for providing jobs to 31,067 rural youths under a government scheme.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding, the government will give these employers the target to train and provide gainful employment to rural youths, with a minimum salary of 10,000 per month for the minimum period of six months.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said education should be focused on skill development, and skill development should be focused on providing employment... That is what we are trying to do," Singh said at an event to sign the MoU.

"India has the potential to be the skill capital of the world. In this direction today for the first time an MoU is being signed between government and employers," Singh said.

He also sought suggestions from the employers on implementing the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) across the country, and distributed appointment letters to some candidates who received similar training under the DDU-GKY and are placed with captive employers.

The Rural Development Ministry launched the Captive employment Guidelines under DDU-GKY to ensure that the candidates are trained as per the industry requirement and employed. The Captive Employment model allows the employer to select rural youth, skill and employ them.

The RTD (Recruit, Train & Deploy) model has been developed to address the needs of the Industry on one hand and ensuring sustainable placement for rural youths.

The Captive Employment Guidelines will increase the direct involvement of the industry due to the benefits provided to the industries for encouraging them to participate in the DDU-GKY program thereby ensuring the large quantity employment for rural youths.

The basic objective of DDU-GKY is to provide the gainful placement in sustainable manner to rural youth after skilling hence the concept of captive employment was envisaged and launched on the occasion of Antyodaya Divas in the year 2020.