New Delhi, Nov 10 (KNN)  Office of the Maulana Azad National Academy for Skills (MANAS) which will serve as a specialized vehicle to implement skill development and upgradation program for the minority communities has been opened here today.
 
The vision of MANAS would be “a Centre of Excellence to promote required skill training, trainers’ training, revive dying arts and crafts, and link skilled personnel to credit with special focus on persons belonging to minorities, leading to creation of self / wage employment,” according to an official release.

Its mission would be to develop a collaborative network, based on private public partnership model, with agencies (like NSDC) having expertise in curriculum development, training, certification and placement, it said.

The Academy, a national level skill development programme with its headquarters here is an initiative of the Ministry of Minority Affairs (MOMA) and various other ministries, departments and organizations of central/state governments.

On the need for such an academy, “Skill Development is an urgent need for minority communities that comprise almost 18.20 per cent of the country’s population and have wide and diverse needs for skill development and training,” it said.

Within minority communities, Muslim community require urgent and focused attention in the area of skill development – majority of them are engaged in livelihoods based on traditional skills, trades and other crafts having low productivity and low income. Need for their skilling/education is significantly higher than rest of the population.   

In addition, as per the Sachar Committee Report, a large number of them are not able to complete even secondary level education and hence require skill training even earlier.

Further, owing to the process of economic liberalization, large numbers have been displaced from their traditional occupations, thus require innovative re-skilling and upgradation of the skills as rehabilitation package.  The best strategy for their inclusion in socio-economic mainstream of the nation is through skilling and skill upgradation, the release said.

The rationale behind setting up of MANAS lies in the fact that large sections of Muslim workers are engaged in self-employment, therefore skill development and credit related initiatives need to be tailor-made for them. Improvement in employment conditions of Muslims would involve a sharper focus on skill development and flow of credit in sectors where they are concentrated.

According to the official release, the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC) needs to transform its structure as well as its functioning in order to promote skill development for minority communities and thereby also contribute to the task of nation building by re-aligning its concessional credit disbursement policy with promotion of self-employment/ wage employment through skill development.

MANAS would be a specialized organizational structure, needed to achieve the above goal. NMDFC will become an instrument for inclusion of minority communities in the socio-economic mainstream of the country and achieve the motto of “Sabka Saath - Sabka Vikas”. (KNN/ES)