To set about achieving the skill development target, central ministries are fighting not just internal turf wars, but also red tape.
Five years earlier, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced plans to set up 50,000 skill development centres (SDCs), which were scheduled to be the primary engine for the initiative. However, the labour ministry, which was mandated to set these up, is yet to come out with a final scheme for SDCs. Till date, not a single such centre has been set up.
The parties concerned give different reasons for the delay. The labour ministry, which was scheduled to finalise a scheme for SDCs within a year of the announcement, blames the Planning Commission. It has, it claims, readied models for two pilot projects, but the commission has not approved these. This is despite the government announcing a Budget allocation for the project for a consecutive year.
It was earlier planned that SDCs would be set up as mini-industrial training institutes (ITIs) to provide training for the services sector and the rural economy, according to the labour ministry. Says Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge: “The Planning Commission has differences over the public-private participation (PPP) model and, hence, the approval for SDCs has been delayed.”
Officials in the ministry feel the absence of a PPP policy in the social sector is the reason for the delay in setting up SDCs. “While the government came out with a policy for PPP projects in infrastructure in a time-bound manner, it is yet to come out with one for the social sector. That is what is delaying SDCs,” says a senior official.
The capital expense in infrastructure PPPs is 90-95 per cent, while maintenance costs account for just three to four per cent. However, the reverse is the case for social sector PPPs. Sharda Prasad, director-general, employment and training, in the labour ministry, says these issues have to be resolved, adding, the Planning Commission has to come out with a policy on PPP before SDCs can be approved.
Once the approval is in place, 5,000 of these would be operational in five years, says Prasad, who led a team in shaping the ministry’s skill development policy draft. The ministry expects to train the majority of the targeted 100 million youth through SDCs and the rest through ITIs, which are being expanded in phases, says Singh.
Gajendra Haldea, advisor to the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, says it is wrong to blame the commission. He also denies there is a policy for PPP initiatives in the social sector in the making. “The labour ministry is still in the process of making the scheme. To say it is pending with us is to shift blame. It is not pending with us. They are in discussion with us, but we don’t have any proposal from them,” he says, adding, “The ministry has only recently started taking active interest in SDCs. In the last three to four years, it was not interested in either SDCs or ITIs.”
Currently, the small targets before different ministries are the only concern. While the 2022 target for the NSDC is 150 million, the labour and rural development ministries have a target of 100 million each. The ministry of sports and youth affairs is scheduled to link 5.4 million members of its Nehru Yuva Kendras to skill development projects with various industrial partners. Each of the 22 ministries has targets under the National Skill Development Policy, based on the number of personnel that would be required in their respective areas in 10 years, say officials.
The rural development ministry says it has trained 6,00,000 people so far, while the labour ministry claims to have trained 2.7 million in the past year through ITIs. It plans to gradually scale up the capacity of ITIs . And, it has the golden SDC goose up its sleeve.
