Spotlight on Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana
Empowering India’s Youth Through Skill Development and Employment Opportunities
The PMKVY is one of the flagship skill development initiatives by the Government of India. The program was initiated in 2015 under the motive of enhancing the skills of 10 million youths across India in various sectors. It is being implemented by the National Skill Development Corporation in collaboration with a set of multiple partners and stakeholders.
What is Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana?
The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY), is actually a scheme for Skill Certification which has a gamut of benefits to the young population of the country. It provides inducement and incentivizes youth to take up industry relevant training in specific skill development areas that would help them achieve secure livelihoods besides certification of prior learning and skills under the RPL scheme, thereby making them more employable.
Objectives of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana
The PMKVY is guided by the following objectives:
Skill Certification: It can make a person capable of getting a skill certification after successful completion of the skill training program. Such certification is well recognized and valued in most sectors, which has significantly improved employment for certified persons.
Building Industry-Relevant Training: PMKVY bridges the existing skill sets of youth with the skills demanded by industry. It emphasizes training programs aligned more in tune with the market's needs to orient the trainees well-equipped in a good set of skills to get them into the labor market.
Job Stability: The scheme provides stable job opportunities to trainees. In this way, PMKVY trains them with foundational skills so that they can gain stable employment or start their own ventures.
Recognition of Prior Learning: Another focus area of the PMKVY scheme is the certification of existing skills in an individual by the initiative of Recognition of Prior Learning. Here, informal learning and work experience-based skills acquired by an individual were being recognized so that the person's qualification is enhanced along with the prospects for employment.
Skill Training of Ten Million Youths: The scheme aims at skill training of ten million youths during 2016-2020. It lays out its commitment to ambitious large-scale skill development. With such large scale skills training among a large number of people, PMKVY looks forward to positively impacting the country's workforce.
Training Specific Groups: The scheme targets young Indians, aged between 15 and 29 years, with a special outreach to school or college dropout and unemployed youth. PMKVY focuses primarily on skill development and generation of employment for those in highest demand.
Promotion of Self-Employment: The PMKVY program equips individuals for employment, promoting self-employment through entrepreneurship training and support. It falls rightly in line with the larger objective of building an entrepreneurial culture within the country.
Eligibility for Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana
There also is an eligibility criterion that an applicant seeking admission to a training program under PMKVY should be in between 14 to 35 years of age. Also, they need to be a citizen of India. The scheme under PMKVY would cater for courses for those persons having different educational qualification levels--some don't even have the same. Further, unemployment or under-employment would be given importance in this scheme so as to enhance their employability prospects. Further, the applicants are quite often required to hold an Aadhar card while seeking admission to PMKVY.
Features of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana
The following are some of the features for PMKVY
MSDE engages Central Ministries and State Governments for accepting employment of contractual employee. This will make hiring an NSQF-certified workforce a mandatory clause in the contract for contractors or vendors.
PMKVY is in alignment with the Common Cost Norms and National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF), wherein any variation in the same shall be as applicable.
Payments to Training Providers would be made in tranches, namely, at the time of commencing training batches, 30%, once it is placed, the next 30%, and once certified, 40%.
Other incentives such as post-placement support, boarding and lodging, conveyance, etc would be reimbursed as applicable under Common Cost Norms.
Interested candidates can enroll themselves for training under this scheme two times in the same sector, the second time getting aligned with a higher NSQF job role. This facility is also available for fresh training on a different course, but a six-month gap is required between the date of certification of the first course and the start date of a batch of the subsequent course. The payout is available for only two job roles to the candidates, SSCs and PIAs.
A research cell at NSDC in order to match demand and supply constantly, and the ASEEM portal is to be strengthened.
Sector Skill Councils will establish CoE which can serve as a resource and training center for any sector, and at least one CoE will be designed per sector.
Vocational courses, launched for classes 9 to 12 in partnership with the Ministry of Education, are introduced to train students on skill development courses for vocational training positions.
Benefits of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana
Benefits of PMKVY are as follows:
The Scheme provides both theoretical and technical training to all participants and, therefore, gives a complete understanding of the field one might be interested in.
Rozgar Melas
The scheme provides the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) for those having already acquired some skills.
PMKVY conducts various Rozgar Melas and uses media coverage to introduce youngsters to other scopes of employment.
The PMKVY offers the learners a lot of useful placement services for the smooth transition of training to employment.
Trained staff under the PKMVY scheme are controlled by high ranking officers strictly to get the best standards
The PKMVY scheme offers monetary aid to the people during training. The money spent on the courses and assessment also will be covered.
Along with postplacement support, accommodation and food, transport, and other such support, more incentives are offered to the trainees.
The training program provides industry-specific training that is designed according to the requirement of the need for industries, so the skills acquired will be directly applicable to the job market.
He/She can take more advanced training programs aimed at higher NSQF levels, which give them a continuing improvement way of progressing in the field.
PKMVY Scheme: Scheme providing preparation through entrepreneurship training and support for employment and also self-employment.
Why PKMVY in Ask?
There is a dire need for the PKMVY for the following:
India is experiencing a high level of unemployment and the PMKVY is trying to curb it by providing skill training to the youth, which enhances their employability.
This focuses on the continuous development of the job market with the new technologies that keep coming up. PMKVY views the youth through the dimension of keeping them updated on the latest skills that will make them more productive towards the evolving job market.
Skilled employees are in high demand across all sectors as Indian economy is growing very rapidly. PMKVY fulfils this demand by providing training to skilled youths and transforming them into a more productive workforce.
Regional Imbalance in Skill Development
India shows a regional imbalance in developing skills. In the current system, PMKVY provides an opportunity of skill training to the youth in each region of the country.
Key Focus of PMKVY: The PMKVY is specifically focused on women skill training, one of the major means of enhancing women's empowerment and their economic participation.
It equitably offers job opportunities to the disadvantaged sections of society, such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Minorities, who are skill-trained under the PMKVY.