Need to upgrade skill institutions with market relevant skills: Dharmendra Pradhan

New Delhi, Apr 28 (KNN) Addressing the State Skill Development Ministers Conference that held yesterday in New Delhi, Minister of Petroleum & Natural gas and Skill development & Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan said that our aim is to establish at least one ITI in each block of the Country by the end of 2018.

With a view to enhance skill development in India, Pradhan said that it is important that Centre and State government work together to ensure paradigm shift in the addressing the issues important to bridge the gaps in skill development to achieve the objectives in terms of quantity, quality, outreach, and mobility.

Emphasizing on the need for strengthening institutional mechanisms for skill development at the State level and bringing in a more robust framework, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Petroleum & Natural Gas and Anant kumar Hegde, Minister of State for Skill Development launched an array of initiatives at a Conference.

With an aim to promote emerging skill areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Robotic Process Automation, Internet of Things, Robotics, Big Data Analytics, 3D printing, etc, various new courses have been launched during the conference.

In this direction, an MOU was signed between Director General of Training (DGT) & National Association of Software Services Companies(NASSCOM) for enabling Skill Development & Continuous learning for ITI trainees & trainers at the conference.

Also at the conference new affiliation Norms 2018 have been launched for ITIs to establish high quality Institutions for Skill Training in all parts of the country especially the un-served blocks.

Hence in order to ensure transparency in the affiliation process, a Portal has also been designed and was launched at the event. The portal has a three-stage process which simplifies the overall affiliation process.

During the conference a common portal under National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) at http://apprenticeshipindia.org was also launched to integrate all apprenticeship training under both designated and optional trades.

The new portal will provide all the stakeholders a uniform user experience with customized dashboard to respective user requirements. It will have more automated modules with minimal outside intervention.

At the conference, MSDE also announced a Self-Grading exercise for ITIs to provide “Star Rating” to each institute, to ensure quality assessment of ITI and a healthy competition between them.

 MSDE also commenced its partnership with Ministry of Home Affairs which has "Surrender-cum-Rehabilitation Scheme for Left Wing Extremists", where surrendered Left-Wing Extremists can take admission in an institute.

Also, they are supported with stipend amounting up-to Rs. 6000/- per month for a period of up-to three years.

As many of them, do not have requisite qualification for getting admission in Industrial Training Institutes, realizing this situation MSDE has relaxed the entry qualification by tweaking the existing Craftsmen Training Scheme to provide them gainful wage or self-employment.