“Sustainable Private and Public partnership crucial for achieving the ambitious skills target,” says Skills Minister

National Skill Development Corporation holds 7th Edition of its Partners’ Meet – “Transforming India-empowering youth for inclusive growth”

  • NSDC achieves its 1 million target set for 2013-14
  • Occasion graced by Shri Sarbananda Sonowal, Minister of State – Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India.
  • Shri V. K. Duggal, Honourable Governor of Manipur and Shri Mukul Sangma, Honourable Chief Minister of Meghalaya, were the Guests of Honour
  • Event saw participation from corporate honchos like Kishore Biyani (Future Group), Huzaifa Khorakiwala (Wockhardt)and the likes

August 4,2014;New Delhi: National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) kicked offthe 7th edition of its Partners Meettoday in New Delhi which saw more than 650 stakeholders from the skills ecosystem across the country, participate in the event. The event had participants across 31 Sector Skill Councils, 136 training partners, representation from employers and key ministries from Government of India.

The two-day bi-annual event had Shri Sarbananda Sonowal, Minister of State – Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India,as its Chief Guest. Shri V. K. Duggal, Honourable Governor of Manipur and Shri MukulSangma, Honourable Chief Minister of Meghalaya, were the Guests of Honour. The meet also witnessed the signing of MoUswith UGC, Pune University, TNOU (Tamil Nadu), Directorate of Urban Development (NULM), Himachal Pradesh and UP Skill Development Mission (UPSDM).

In a short span of less than five years since NSDC has been operational, more than 2 million youth have been skilled, more than half of whom are gainfully employed today. NSDC has approved the setting up of 136training organisations with the potential to train over 83 million people over the next 10 years. As of date,there are over 2,856 training centres, 1150 of which are mobile, covering 368 districts, i.e., over 50 per cent of the districts in the country.

Delivering the inaugural address,Shri Sarbananda Sonowal, Minister of State –Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India said, “The target for NSDC is to skill 3.3 million this year and I am sure the team will ensure that they are met. It is absolutely necessary to ensure that the industry be made a major partner in skilling India and NSDC has been extremely successful in engaging and exponentially growing the efforts of the private sector.”

Commenting on the newly formed Ministry for Skill Development, Shri Sonowal further added, “We are in the process of activating the Ministry of Skill Development and are currently consulting with all major stakeholders including the private sector. We believe an effective and sustainable partnership between private and public sector would be crucial for this ambitious mission to be achieved.This Ministry will assist and enable in every possible way new, creative and self-sustaining mechanisms to ensure that goals set by the Honourable Prime Minister for Skill India are achieved.”

Talking about the skills landscape in Manipur, Shri V.K.Duggal, Honorable Governor, Manipur said "There is an urgent and imperative need to close the gap between the manpower demand and supply across all states. We have immensely talentedyouth in the North-Eastern states, especially Manipur, who have great potential in the hospitality, IT and healthcare sectors. We will certainly focus on our region and ensure we create a complete ecosystem for the youth of Manipur."

Dr.MukulSangma, Chief Minister, Meghalaya said, “The country needs to harness its demographic dividend by skilling the youth and we would specifically like to focus on encouraging the youth of Meghalayato gain skills for self-employment and entrepreneurship. We have also focused on the women of our state and have established number multi-facility centresin specific regions and villages which will help provide them skill trainings.”

Shri Arvind Mayaram, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Government of Indiasaid that there is a need to analyse in-depth, have a customized approach sector wise and as our honourable Prime Minister says we should not only focus on skilling for the country but for the global shortage of skills.

Shri S. Ramadorai, Chairman, National Skill Development Corporationsaid,“In 2013-14 alone NSDC and its partners skilled over 1.3 million people and without counting numbers that came from STAR scheme, we did 1.05 million well past our target of 1 million.Last June when I was addressing the 5th Partners’ Meet, I had expressed my hope to complement you all on achieving the 1 million target set for 2013-14. So here it is. Congratulations on a job well done! Personally, achieving this target is special to me, in April 2014 I finished one year as Chairman of NSDC. So I am happy to be a part of this success.”

Ramadorai further added, “I wish to place on record my words of appreciation and gratitude to the Honourable Finance Minister Shri ArunJaitley. In his Budget speech in June he had reaffirmed his government’s commitment to skill development by announcing the Skill India Mission which will encompass the National Multi-Skill Mission Programme. In the coming months and weeks, a clearer picture will emerge on the roll out of this new programme. If my reading of the budget documents is right, all the big skill-oriented schemes run, not just NSDC, but the various ministries at the Centre, will continue to be well-provided for.”

Dilip Chenoy, MD & CEO, National Skill Development Corporation said, “We are glad that we have been able to achieve the 1 million mark set for 2013-14. We look forward to the direction from the skills ministry and to work in conjunction with them to meet the skills requirement in the country.”

About National Skill Development Corporation:

National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), which was formed under the Ministry of Finance, is a one of its kind public-private partnership with 51 per cent equity held by private sector and the balance 49 per cent by the Union Government. Formed in 2010, NSDC is a professionally run not-for-profit company that includes 31 Sector Skill Councils and 136 training partners with over 2500+ training centres spread across 366 districts in the country. NSDC is mandated to skill 150 million Indians by 2022.

For more information on NSDC kindly visit our website, and Facebook page:

Garima Misra / Niren Yadav

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