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National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has approved a Rs 18.3-crore loan to Hyderabad-based talent and skill development firm Skillpro.
The proposal to provide funding to Skillpro to help augment its capacity and train 500,000 individuals with employability skills in the next two to three years was among the 160 such proposals cleared by the board of NSDC as part of its mandate to improve youth employability.
The NSDC funding, which comes in three to four 4 tranches, coupled with another Rs 7 crore from its own sources, would help Skillpro create 220 skilling centres in the country in the next three years. Skillpro currently runs more than 50 skill centres across 16 states.
“NSDC supports funding any sustainable programme, which skills at least 50,000 over a period of 10 years. We have so far cleared Rs 630 crore to support industry players take forward the employability programmes,” Dilip HM Chenoy, managing director and chief executive officer of of NSDC, said here on Friday.
Speaking to Business Standard, Chenoy said the model worked well for NSDC as it had been able to bring down the cost of skilling an individual by engaging private sector trainers and employers.
“I am spending Rs 630 crore and getting an output of Rs 3,400 crore through programmes like this. If NSDC had to skill an individual directly, it would have been at least Rs 10,000 per head. By engaging many partners and ensuring quality standards, the job has become easy,” he said.
Skillpro chairman Ananth Rao said the loan from NSDC had come after much due diligence from the latter and the company had agreed to clear the entire loan with interest in less than seven years.
