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One youth from each rural household that completes 100 days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme will be eligible for skill training and job placement under the National Skill Development Scheme.
This will bring around 36-45 lakh rural youth under the scheme, as around 8-10 per cent of the 4.5 crore rural households get 100 days of jobs under the rural job scheme.
“There will be post-placement support and hand-holding for one to two years,” Rural Development Minister, Jairam Ramesh, while launching the National Skill Certification and Monetary Reward Scheme here on Friday.
This scheme was announced by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. In his Budget speech earlier this year, Chidambaram proposed to allocate Rs 1,000 crore to the scheme, which aims to motivate youth to acquire vocational skills. The scheme is expected to benefit 10 lakh people in the first year of its implementation. Each tested and certified trainee will get an average of Rs 10,000 to cover training costs.
The scheme, branded as STAR (Standard Training Assessment and Reward) for promotional purposes, envisages that a monetary reward will, in essence, help those who wish to acquire a new skill or upgrade skills. Chidambaram said if creating jobs was important, then providing better skills was equally important, which is why the new scheme had been launched.
He said between 2004-05 and 2009-10, two crore jobs were created in the country, while the unemployment rate declined from 8.3 per cent to 6.6 per cent. The National Skilling Mission envisages adding 500 million skilled Indians by 2022. While 150 million are expected to be contributed by the private sector working under National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), 350 million will be contributed by 18-odd Central Ministries.
The monetary reward will strictly depend on obtaining a certificate, which will be issued by qualified assessors after necessary tests have been passed. The skills are also benchmarked to the National Occupational Standards that have been developed by NSDC with the support of sector skill councils.
> shishir.sinha@thehindu.co.in
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