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The Centre has formed a national steering committee (NSC), comprising representatives from various ministries and the industry, to come up with guidelines and a broad policy framework to transform skilling infrastructure in India -- which include upgrading of 1,000 ITIs and setting up five National Centres of Excellence for Skilling.
The NSC was constituted by the skill ministry last week.
“We want to move beyond funding. We want the industry to shape the curriculum, certification, and training standards. This is how we create employable youth and make ITIs future-ready,” Skill Development Minister Jayant Chaudhary said last week against the backdrop of the formation of the panel.
Chaudhary has also said that states have been told to identify the ITIs and come up with bids for the policy.
The Union cabinet had in May approved a new ₹60,000 crore industrial training institute (ITI) upgradation scheme, with focus on 1,000 government ITIs in hub and spoke arrangement with industry-aligned revamped trades with a target to skill over two million youth. ALSO READ: Indiamart Q1 results: Net profit rises 35% to ₹153.54 cr, income up 20%
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The committee will also issue (form) regulations for setting up of the five national centres of excellence for skilling, which has special emphasis on creating a skilled workforce for the manufacturing sector.
The stakeholders
The NSC will be chaired by Skill Secretary Rajit Punhani and will have representation from various other central ministries like education, heavy industries, commerce and industry and labour among others.
It will also have representation from private companies like Bajaj Auto, ITC limited, Hindustan Aeronautics and Hero MotoCorp among others, along with state representatives.
The mandate
The NSC will issue scheme guidelines, give broad policy directions and reallocate funds across components within the overall scheme allocation as well as modification of minor components not envisaged (in line with broad concept of scheme) but required for successful implementation of scheme.
Besides, it will also facilitate alignment between central, state and cluster level entities and review states’ recommendations and provide final approval for the selected bids. It will also be responsible for overall oversight of the NSTI transformation component of the scheme, including planned sector specific CoEs and global partnerships.
The ITI upgradation scheme, which was announced in the Union Budget 2024-25, would run for a period of five years, with the Centre contributing ₹30,000 crore and states ₹20,000 crore. The rest will be pitched in by industry as corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Meanwhile, with a special emphasis on creating a skilled workforce for the manufacturing sector, the Cabinet has also approved the setting up of five CoEs in the existing five National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs), namely at Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kanpur, and Ludhiana.
The first NSTI was opened in 1963. Currently, there are 33 such institutes in the country. The primary focus of NSTIs is on training instructors. These are institutions responsible for training instructors in the techniques of transferring hands-on skills and training methodology.
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