The ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship plans to open new industrial training institutes (ITIs) and improve the infrastructure of the existing ones as part of the 100-day agenda of the new government, a senior official told FE. “The focus will be on improving the perception so that the ITIs become aspirational. We will also strengthen the existing institutes by spending more on improving the facilities there. Over the next few days, we will send a proposal for the new ITIs to the cabinet for approval,” the ministry official said. At present, there are 15,034 ITIs in the country with a combined seat capacity of 3.6 million.
The official said the ministry will also launch a new skilling voucher scheme to help those willing to pursue high-end skilling courses. “If a course fee is around Rs 50,000, the government will fund part of it through the vouchers. We don’t have the budget to extend full sponsorship, so we will pay a part of the course fee directly to the training institutes,” the official said.He said the ministry is also mulling bringing a new skills loan system that will aid the students to finance the remaining course fee.The other immediate focus area for the ministry include setting up three Indian Institutes of Skills (IIS) – one each in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kanpur – through the public-private partnership (PPP) model.
These institutes are being built with strong industry connect, modern training methodology, virtual learning and augmented learning platforms. The centres in Mumbai and Ahmedabad are being set up with Tata Education and Development Trust, and the Kanpur one with IIT Kanpur as mentor and knowledge partner. “In Ahmedabad, we have given land to the Tata Group and the facilities are being developed by them,” the official said.As part of the plan, the ministry is enhancing the number of Skill India International Centres (SIICs). “We will looking at setting up about 7 centres initially. These centres will be opened in strategic cities where there’s already significant migration of workers from India,” said the official. In 2022, the first SIIC was launched in Bhubaneswar and there are currently two SIICs in the country.
These centres facilitates job opportunities for Indians across the world through the G2G (government-to-government) or B2B (business-to-business) tie-ups between the ministry and global recruiters.In the FY24 budget, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that 30 SIICs will be launched in different states to mobilise skilled workforce from India to other countries based on the demand.The official said that the short-term skilling programmes like Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) and PM Vishwakarma will get a huge push as well. “We are constantly evaluating new courses to impart emerging and industry 4.0 skills in areas such as coding, cloud computing, IoT, AI/ML, drones, solar tech, etc. We are focussing on skilling in futuristic job, especially skilling of women, under the short-term training,” the official added.