Patna, June 26: News to cheer Bihar - the first National Skills University would be set up in the state.
Union minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy made this announcement here on Friday.
The Union minister was here in connection with the signing of a tripartite agreement among the National Skill Development Fund (NSDF), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) for starting skill development programme in Bihar. Union minister of state for power, coal and new and renewable energy Piyush Goyal too attended the event.
The agreement was signed by joint secretary in the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship Jyotsna Sitling , NTPC director (huma resource) U.P. Pani and NSDC managing director-cum-chief executive officer Dilip H. Chenoy. According to the agreement, NSDC through its will facilitate quality training through its approved training partners and placement to the trainees through its training partner network.
The programme entails skill training of 25,000 youths from Bihar in the next 12 to 14 months and the provision of a fund of Rs 30 crore by the NTPC under its corporate social responsibility initiative.
Asked about the details of the proposed university, Rudy said: "Things are being worked out and a formal announcement would be made shortly."
Sources in his ministry said Prime Minister Narendra Modi may make the formal announcement of the skills university on July 15, which would for the first time be observed as World Youth Skills Day as mandated by the United Nations.
The preparation for starting the National Skills University, the purpose of setting up of which is to provide nationally recognised university degrees and certification for vocational skills, design and conduct assessment procedures, design relevant curriculum etc, was started in March this year. A working group under the skill development ministry was set up to chalk out the details.
Rudy underlined the importance of skill development in India and maintained that countries such as Japan, United Kingdom and Germany among others had very high percentage of skilled workforce, which in turn, was reflected in the high per capita income in these countries. Hence, India too needed to skill its workforce for their well-being, added the minister.
According to official figures, 80 per cent of Japan's work force possesses some skills and the corresponding figures for Germany and UK stood at 74 and 68 per cent respectively. In India, this figure stands at a lowly 3 per cent.
According to the estimates made by the skill development ministry, around 300 million youths are needed to be skilled in the next five years for which around Rs 6 lakh crore would be required.
In Bihar, the state government records show that there are about 40 million people in the age group of 15 to 29 years of which less than 1 per cent had some sort of formal vocational training. The state, in fact, faces an acute shortage of trained manpower and Bihar Industries Association (BIA) president Arun Agarwal admitted that in several cases, entrepreneurs had to call specialists from Calcutta to get their machines rectified in case of any glitch.
Industrialist Satyajit Kumar said: "The need of the hour is to launch skill development programmes, which can deliver skilled hands required for the local industries."
Delivering his speech in the skill development launch programme, Goyal chose to highlight the achievements made by Bihar people outside the state and said an environment needed to be created within the state so that talented people could excel here itself.
