Monetary reward to encourage the youth to voluntarily join skill development programmes

Updated on: Friday, March 01, 2013

Acquiring necessary skills will not only help a candidate gain employment but also fetch Rs 10,000 as a monetary reward on passing the training programmes formulated by National Skill Development Corporation.

The novel move is aimed at encouraging the youth to voluntarily join skill development programmes, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said while presenting the 2013-14 Union Budget.

"On the assumption that 10,00,000 youth can be motivated, I propose to set apart Rs 1,000 crore for this ambitious scheme. I hope that this will be the trigger to extend skill development to all the youth of the country," he said. According to the proposal, the candidates have to appear a test conducted by authorised certification bodies at the end of the training.

Upon passing the test, the candidate will be given a certificate as well as a monetary reward of an average of Rs 10,000 per candidate. The government has set an ambitious target of generating 500 million skilled workers over the next decade to propel the economic growth.

In his Budget speech, Chidambaram also proposed that the National Skill Development Corporation to set the curriculum and standards for training in different skills. Any institution or body may offer training courses.

While the Labour and Employment Ministry has got Rs 446 crore more than the revised estimate at Rs 2,446 crore, Chidambaram said the Rashtriya Swasthiya Bima Yojana (RSBY) programme under the Ministry will be extended to other categories such as rickshaw, auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers, sanitation workers, rag pickers and mine workers.

At present, the programme, which aims to provide health insurance coverage to BPL families, covers 34 million families.

Monetary reward to encourage the youth to voluntarily join skill development programmes

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