New Delhi: Minister of State for Labour & Employment, Mr. Oscar Fernandes has said that the draft of "National Policy on Skill Development", which would enable and anchor various initiatives and promote a coherent skill-training implementation strategy, is ready to be placed before the Cabinet for its approval.

The Minister was addressing the 37th meeting of National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) here today.

Fernandes said that training and skill development is being given top priority by the Government and it has now become a national agenda.

He said that a new scheme called 'Skill Development Initiative' has been launched by the Government to train one million persons in the next five years and then one million every year.

Under the scheme, he said, training is provided in demand-driven short-term courses which are based on Modular Employable Skills. The training cost for the successful candidate is borne by the Central Government.

"Till date, the curricula of 340 modules have been developed, more than 60,000 persons have been trained and 2154 Vocational Training Providers have been registered", Fernandes informed.

The Minister also informed that the Planning Commission has already communicated their 'in-principle' approval for the two new schemes for establishing 1500 new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and the other scheme for setting of 50,000 Skill Development Centres (SDCs).

These schemes were announced by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Giving details about the ongoing two major schemes for upgradation of all the existing Government ITIs in the country, the Minister said that under the first scheme, 500 ITIs are being upgraded into Centres of Excellence.

Out of these, 100 ITIs are being upgraded through domestic funding at a cost of Rs.160 crores and other 400 ITIs are being upgraded with the assistance of World Bank at a cost of about Rs.1581 crores.

The second scheme for upgradation of remaining 1396 ITIs is being implemented through Public Private Partnership (PPP) at a cost of about Rs.3550 crores.

Terming it as a path-breaking scheme, the Minister said that this kind of large-scale participation of private sector in the Government programmes has happened perhaps for the first time in a social sector programme.

"Under this Scheme, we have been able to associate with the industry partners in the process of upgradation of 300 ITIs all over the country and have released an amount of Rs.750 crores to these ITIs at the rate Rs.2.5 crores per ITI", he said.

Emphasizing that quality of training should be of international standards, Fernandes said that state Governments, workers union and industry associations must contribute actively and effectively to complement the Union Government's efforts for improving the skill development system in the country.

He said that, "We have to improve our affiliation system in such a manner that neither trainees nor training provider face any difficulty and we should take steps to make the system fast, transparent and user friendly".

The issues discussed at the meeting of NCVT included the change in cut-off dates for grant of affiliation to ITIs and ITCs, affiliation norms for opening Instructor Training Institutes, introduction of eligibility test at national level for candidates desirous of seeking job as instructor of ITIs, appointment of 20 percent more regular instructors in ITIs/ITCs for their regular deputation of training and retraining etc.

On this occasion, the Minister also gave away the prizes to the winners of All India Skill Competition for Apprentices.