World Youth Skills Day: Over 75 Lakh People Upskilled Under Skill India Mission

The Skill India Mission has been a cornerstone policy in the Indian government’s digitisation efforts and the subsequent technological revolution across the economy, particularly in the startup ecosystem. The government is now celebrating four years of Skill India Mission coinciding with the World Youth Skills Day, and has announced that 1 Cr youth are being enrolled under the initiative on a yearly basis.

Till now, 67 lakh people have been trained, while 25K PM Kaushal Kendras have been setup across the country. Thanks to Skill India, 4.45 Lakh trainees have been given apprenticeship training every year, according to the government’s announcement today (July 15) on the occasion of World Youth Skills Day.

Hyperlocal startup UrbanClap is partnering with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) under Skill India to set up training centres, where service professionals will be trained in various skills and also be given work opportunities. UrbanClap will be a key strategic partner under the Skill India Mission, according to the company.

Skill India has set up 15 training centres with UrbanClap, which is part of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). Over 10 lakh youth are expected to be trained under this partnership, said union minister for skill development and entrepreneurship, Mahendra Nath Pandey.

Skill India Milestones On World Youth Skills Day

R.K Singh, minister of state, power, new and renewable energy, and minister of state, skills and entrepreneurship development said the employability factor for Skill India graduates has reached 50%. “We have upskilled over 75 lakh people. The number of ITIs have increased from 9.6K in 2014 to 14.9K today,” he added.

NSDC will support UrbanClap to become a 100 % Skill India certified organization under RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) component of the PMKVY. UrbanClap will also create micro-entrepreneurship opportunities for candidates already certified under PMKVY 2.0 and additionally train 30K new partners. Currently, with over 20K partners UrbanClap services close to a million customers every month across 10 cities in India.

At today’s Skill India Mission event, the government announced that it has added 271 Jan Shikshan Sansthan centres for skill training across 27 states and 2 union territories. These centres have enabled the training of over 8 Lakh students in skills such as soft toy creation, baking, tailoring and other vocations.

This has resulted in the creation of over 2,138 public sector jobs and over 24K private sector jobs including 116K entrepreneurs, 37K labours, and 9K craftsmen.

From this year, the Skill India Mission will focus on skilling for unorganised sectors. Most notably, the government is working with startups to fulfil skill-based training for potential employees in the private sector.