Skill, labour, talent for MSMEs: The number of trainees or beneficiaries under the Modi government’s scheme to promote entrepreneurship among youth Entrepreneurship Skill Development Programme (ESDP) has recorded around 170 per cent growth in the current financial year vis-a-vis FY22. According to the data shared by Minister of State for MSMEs Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma in the Rajya Sabha recently, the beneficiary count jumped from 59,204 in FY22 to 1.59 lakh as of March 15 in FY23 with over 100x amount spent by the MSME ministry for the programme in the current fiscal — Rs 38.37 crore in comparison to only Rs 35.95 lakh spent in FY22.
However, the FY23 beneficiary count till March 15 was still lower than 2.42 lakh trainees during FY20 or pre-Covid. The amount released in FY20 to train entrepreneurs was Rs 34.19 crore. In FY21, the programme had 27,604 trainees. The scheme focuses on making youth aware of various aspects of starting a business including capacity building of existing MSMEs and establishing entrepreneurial culture.
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Out of the total beneficiary count, the number of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe entrepreneurs supported in FY23 till March 15 under ESDP stood at 9,109 and 43,548 respectively. This was 38x and 33x respectively higher than 240 scheduled caste and 1,312 scheduled tribe trainees in FY22.
As per ESDP scheme guidelines, about 40 per cent of the targeted beneficiaries of ESDP should be from weaker sections of society including SC/ST/women/physically handicapped trainees. The programme doesn’t charge any participation fee from SC, ST, physically handicapped, women and below-poverty-line participants.
Among the programmes organised under the scheme includes a one-day Entrepreneurship Awareness Programme (EAP), six-week Entrepreneurship-cum-Skill Development Programme (E-SDP), one-week advance E-SDP, one-week Management Development Programme (MDP), and advance MDP, according to the MSME Ministry’s FY23 annual report.
The funds allocated to ESDP in the FY23 budget was Rs 40 crore, of which Rs 34.21 crore expenditure was incurred as of January 18, 2023, the report noted.