Daily PIB Analysis For UPSC/IAS | 27th Jan 19

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Ministry of Textiles

“Artisan Speak” to be held at Elephanta Caves to showcase GI Textiles

Government to link industry and handloom clusters for direct sourcing of handloom products To further strengthen the handlooms and textiles sector of India, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India is presenting “Artisan Speak”, a unique event which will showcase the rich handloom and textile tradition of India. The event is being held at UNESCO World Heritage site, Elephanta Caves near Mumbai, on January 28, 2019. The Union Minister for Textiles, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani will be present on the occasion. Former Indian cricketer Shri Sachin Tendulkar will also grace the occasion, on behalf of M/s Arvind True Blue Limited.
The historic occasion will mark a new beginning of major commitments by the private sector towards the development of India’s handlooms.
Handloom promotion will get a boost due to the signing of collaborative arrangements between the Government and leading retailers and textile brands.
Under the agreements to be signed between Office of Development Commissioner (Handlooms), Ministry of Textiles and textile companies, Weavers’ Service Centres (WSCs) under O/o DC (Handlooms) will act as a facilitator, linking textile companies and handloom clusters.
The WSCs will enable textile firms to directly source their requirements from handloom clusters, as per defined quality, cost and time constraints. This will also result in better price realization and improved market understanding for weavers.

Some of the key designers and artisans participating in the presentation are:
Designer Rahul Mishra showcasing Chikankari
Designer Payal Khandwala showcasing Banarasi brocades
Master-weaver Shantilal Bhangade showcasing Paithani
Designer Gaurang showcasing Kancheepuram silks
Dr. Ushadevi Balakrishnan from Kerala presenting Balaramapuram sarees through Anka
Designer Karishma Shahani Khan showcasing Kota Doria/Chanderi textiles
Designer Meera Muzaffar Ali showcasing Chikankari
Designer Padmaja showcasing Maheshwari textiles
Artisan Rajib Debnath (Burdwan) showcasing Jamdani sarees
Designer Abraham & Thakore showcasing hand-block prints on handloom cotton

Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

Year-end report of MSDE

More than One Crore youth annually joining and benefitting from the Skill India program;
Core focus on converging all skill development initiatives in the country under one National Skills Qualification Framework;

Skill India– Highlights 2018

This year, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) completed its 4 successful years, since its inception in 2014.
For the first time, a ministry created by the Government of India, is keeping its core focus on converging all skill development initiatives in the country under one National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF).
Annually, more than One Crore youth, have been joining and benefitting from the Skill India program, a mission under the Ministry to equip youth with skills for better livelihood.
Some of the key achievements of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship are:

Policy, Framework & Standards

Launch of the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in 2015: First ever comprehensive policy framework for skill development of the country
National Skill Development Mission, launched in 2015 by Hon’ble Prime Minister – First ever national implementation plan covering all states, territories and people
Common Norms – launched in 2015 to provide harmonization of training costs, processes, assessments, certification and outcome. Presently over 20 Ministries are implementing skill development schemes
Common Norms Alignment with other schemes and programs; 18 out of 20 Ministries aligned; Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) exempted because of special nature
Enforcement of National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) – more than 2,000 Qualification Packs developed in four year

Programs/Initiatives

Pradhan MantriKaushalVikasYojana (PMKVY):

It is one of the flagship schemes of the Ministry aimed at providing free-of-cost skill training to over 1 Crore youth in 4 years in 221+ job roles;offering short term training between 2 months to 6 months.
Pradhan MantriKaushal Kendra (PMKK): It is an initiative towards creation of “Model Training Centers”with standardized infrastructure for delivery of skill development training to be opened in every district of India; aiming to make benchmark institutions that can demonstrate aspirational value for competency based skill development amongst key stakeholders- industry and trainees.

National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS):

The scheme is aimed to increase the involvement of industries and employers in engaging youth as apprentices and providing on-the-job skill training to create a ready workforce. The government reimburses part of stipend paid by the employer.
Establishing Academic Equivalence: Skill India aims to make skilling aspirational and bring vocational training in equivalence with the academic education system, especially to provide horizontal and vertical mobility pathway to candidates pursuing vocational education. The Directorate General of Training wing under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) under Ministry of Human Resource Development have signed a MoU to put in place a system for academic equivalence to vocational/ITI qualification, thereby opening gateway to meet aspirations of ITI candidates to attain high academic qualification in addition to their skills.
Capacity building in long term skill development: One of the initiatives towards building capacity of the skill ecosystem is uniform nomenclature of all the skill institutes across country as National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs), and
Merging of NSTIs, with courses in ITIs, establishment of Indian Institute of Skills (IIS) and inspections and de-affiliation of various ITIs etc.
As on December 2018, 719 PMKKs have been allocated across 29 States and 6 UTs, covering 631 Districts and 521 Parliamentary Constituencies (PC).
MSDE also laid down the foundation stone of the first National Skill Training Institute (erstwhile RVTI) in Telangana, Hyderabad by the Hon’ble Vice President of India

National Skill Training Institute (W):

Under the Central Scheme, regular vocational training programmes are being conducted through an Institutional Network of 18 central Institutes called National Skill Training Institute for Women, providing training facilities exclusively for women in skills having high wage-employment and self-employment potential besides Instructor training programmes.

Indian Institute of Skills (IIS):

These state-of-the-art centers of excellence are being set up across four regions of India, on the lines of premiere global institutes such as Institute of Technical Education (ITE), Singapore.
The Hon’ble Prime Minister had launched the first IIS in Kanpur in December 2016, which was conceptualized by the Prime Minister during his visit to ITE Singapore.
Further, IIS Mumbai will be set up in collaboration with TATA group. Total budget of Rs. 476 Crore has been laid down for building IIS, which will provide hands-on training in advanced courses such as energy efficient construction, industrial electronics and automation etc.
Pradhan MantriKaushalVikasYojana (PMKVY) and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL): Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship is implementing flagship scheme known as Pradhan MantriKaushalVikasYojana (PMKVY) on pan–India basis.
PMKVY (1.0)was launched as a pilot in 2015, as a reward based scheme providing entire cost of training as a reward to successful candidates.
The scheme was designed as a skill certification and reward scheme with an aim to enable and mobilize a large number of Indian youth to take up skill training and become employable for sustainable livelihood.
Under the scheme, monetary reward was provided to successfully trained candidates. During its pilot phase, PMKVY (1.0) trained over 18 Lakh candidates in 375 job roles.
Owing to its successful first year of implementation, the Union Cabinet approved the Scheme for another four yearsPMKVY (2.0)(2016-2020) to impart skilling to 1 Crore youth of the country with an outlay of Rs. 12,000 crores.
PMKVY(2.0) enables large number of prospective youth which also includes tribal community, persons with disability and other disadvantaged youth, to take up Short Term Training (STT) and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) through accredited and affiliated training partner/training centers.
The schemes runs across more than 250 job roles related to nearly 38 Sector Skill Councils for Short term training, Special Projects (SPL) and RPL, which is a diverse and exhaustive representation of the industry.
The flagship program PMKVY has successfully registered close to 10 lakh placements in 2018.
The scheme emphasizes on bringing scale and speed to standards in the skill ecosystem and creating employment opportunities for the youth and women.
Encouragingly, women have outshone men with over 5 lakhs registering for the placement drive. The number of male registrations is just a shade under 4.5 lakh and expected to climb in a few months.
Since 2018, as a new initiative, each candidate certified under PMKVY (2.0) also gets covered under Personal Accident insurance sum of 2 lakhs which is valid upto 2 years.
The cost of this insurance is being covered by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
Grading of ITIs:
Directorate General of Training under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship launched grading exercise for ITIs to provide “Star Rating” to the performing institutes and gave an opportunity to the others to improve upon.
Dual System of Training: The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship signed 27 MoUs with varied industries under the dual system of training (DST) in six states – namely, Odisha, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
Around 80 more MoUs are in the pipeline for Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.
The DST scheme is inspired by the German Vocational Training Model, which enables industries to partner with Government and Private Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) for conducting training programmes under high employability courses to fulfil the needs of industries.

SANKALP:

Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP) project aims to implement the mandate of the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM), which was launched on 15th July by Ministry of Skill Development through its core sub-missions. The project will be implemented in mission mode through World Bank support.
A Global Skill Gap study has been undertaken to evaluate the current scenario and future-outlook for overseas employment of skilled workers from India.
Collaboration with Singapore Polytechnic is aimed to strengthen the academies for training of trainers and assessors.

STRIVE:

“Skills Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement (STRIVE)” is aRs 2,200 crore – central sector project, with half of the project outlay as World Bank assistance.
STRIVE is an outcome-based project, marking a shift in government’s implementation strategy in vocational education and training from inputs to results building in a strong shift to an outcome-based skill ecosystem.
The STRIVE project aims at creating awareness through industry clusters/ geographical chambers that would address the challenge of involvement of Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs).
The Project would also aim at integrating and enhancing delivery quality of ITIs.
National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET):The Union Cabinet chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, approved the merger of the existing regulatory institutions in the skills space –
National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) and the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) into the National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET).
NCVET will regulate the functioning of entities engaged in vocational education and training,both long-term and short-term, and establish minimum standards for the functioning of such entities.
The primary functions of NCVET will include – recognition and regulation of awarding bodies, assessment bodies and skill related information providers; approval of qualifications developed by awarding bodies and Sector Skill Councils (SSCs); indirect regulation of vocational training institutes through awarding bodies and assessment agencies; research and information dissemination; and grievance redressal.
Jan ShikshanSansthan(JSS)– The JSS component of scheme of support to voluntary agencies for adult education has been transferred from Ministry of Human Resource Development to Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship on 2nd July, 2018.
At present, 271 Jan Shikshan Sansthans are present in 27 States and 2 UTs in the country.
As on December 2018, 247 JSSs are functional.
The Jan ShikshanSansthans are set up under the aegis of either a voluntary organization (as its Parent body) or a University or as an Independent agency under Act 1860 of Societies Registration.
JSS is funded through 100% annual grant from the Government of India.
The affairs of the Jan ShikshanSansthans are managed by its independent Board of Management constituted with the concurrence of Government of India for a period of three years