In a bid to support rural unemployed youth with vocational training facilities, the Centre has decided to replicate the rural development and self employment training institute (RUDSETI) model across all the districts of the country.
Public sector banks like Syndicate Bank and Canara Bank, along with Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Educational Trust, an NGO, initiated the RUDSETI concept in Karnataka in early 1980s. Through 20 such institutes across 12 states, more than 2 lakh rural youth have been successfully imparted training facilities, leading to self employment ventures in rural areas. ?We are well on course to set up at least 100 similar institutes by the end of the current fiscal,? Rita Sharma, secretary, department of rural development told FE.
As per the tripartite agreement, the state government would provide the land for setting up such an institute, while the initial grant of Rs 1 crore per district would be allocated by the Planning Commission, subject to the condition that 70% of the people trained must be from rural backgrounds and below poverty line families.
The lead bank of the respective district would impart training programmes to rural youth after doing a need assessment survey and the rural development ministry would finance the cost of the training programme, Sharma said. The lead bank will also have functional autonomy to run these institutes as per the local demand.
Reserve Bank of India has, ?in principle?, agreed to provide support to RUDSETI and has already informed the rural development ministry that there are about 133 similar institutes in operation across the country.
?We plan to cover all 600 odd districts during the 11th Plan period,? Sharma said. The rural development ministry, through a series of letters, has already requested states to identify plots of lands in the districts which could be handed over to the banks for setting up of RUDSETI-type institutions.
?The model has proved successful for the past 22 years in boosting the morale of the youth and empowering them to acquire a productive identity by taking up self-employment ventures in their own places,? Sharma added.
Under the RUDSETI model, rural unemployed youth will be provided training facilities under the entrepreneurs development programme, in at least 50 areas such as dairy management, horticulture, poultry sericulture, mushroom cultivation, photography, videography and garment manufacturing. Most of the training programmes are 1 to 6 weeks long.
The rural development ministry?s support for the programme is part of the Centre?s plan to push an estimated 5 crore BPL families above the poverty line by scaling up an existing scheme called Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) on a ?mission mode? basis, by imparting technical skills to rural people. The scheme aims at augmenting the incomes of poor families by imparting technical training to one member in each family.
Launched in 1999, SGSY aims at ensuring self-employment opportunities and covers all aspects, including provisions of income-generating assets, training and capacity building, credit, technology, infrastructure and marketing support. According to official data, under the SGSY scheme, more than 111 lakh youth have been trained and assisted. SGSY is implemented by district rural development agencies, in collaboration with banks and panchayats through self help groups.
The revamped SGSY assumes prominence as, according to the Centre?s own calculations, a rural family on an average, under the UPA government?s flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, is entitled for Rs 8,000 ? Rs 10,000 per annum as wages for 100 days. However, old age pension of Rs 200 and agricultural income are not enough in helping the poor rural folk fight the poverty trap.