Odisha govt to provide skill training to 11 lakh youth in five years

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Oct 28:

The Odisha Government has targeted to provide skill training to 11 lakh youth  passing out of professional institutions in five years beginning 2014-15 under the Chief Minister Employment Generation Scheme to make them eligible for employment in various industries in the state, said Director of Odisha State Employment Mission Society (OSEMS) and Directorate of Technical Education & Training (DTET), Odisha Pramod Kumar Panda here today.

While 9.3 lakh of them would be drawn from the rural areas, 1.7 lakh would be from urban areas of the state, Panda said. On an average, two lakh youths would be selected from a total of 6,400 Gram Panchayats across the State, he added.

Addressing a panel discussion on ‘Rural India to Skilled India: Unleashing the Avenues’, organized by the Bansidhar and Ila Panda Foundation (BIPF), in partnership with FICCI Odisha State Council, the OSEMS Director said an amount of Rs 111 crore has been earmarked this year for OSEMS, set up in 2005-2006, to impart skill training to these youth.

Panda said 79 MoU’s signed between State Government and industrial houses between 2002-2012. But not a single industry had set up an ITI nor adopted a government ITI to provide skill training to students passing out from professional institutes and to create job opportunities for them.

As a result, cases of unemployment, under-employment and migration had increased manifold in the state. The absence of jobs has led to serious consequences with some joining Maoist organisations or indulging criminal activities, Panda said.

Entrepreneurs present at the event highlighted some of the challenges in skill development programmes, including identification of youths to be enrolled for training programmes, training cost, shortage of good trainers, training duration and lack of response from industries and institutes to address skill-development related issues.

BIPF CEO Shaifalika Panda said that skill development targets can be met through time bound action by all stakeholders to overcome various challenges. “There is a need to harmonise individual objectives selected by various stakeholders with a collective goal. The more aligned we are, the faster we can reap the benefit of the tremendous demographic dividend we possess,” she underlined.