President Shri Pranab Mukherjee To Be A Part Of One Year celebrations of Skill India; To Inaugurate First Edition Of “IndiaSkills – 2016”

• 4820 candidates registered to compete in 80 regional rounds to win their way to the IndiaSkills Competition 2016, to organized at Pragati Maidan on 16th- 17th July, 2016

• Winners will qualify for the final selection round for participating in WorldSkills International Competition at Abu Dhabi, 2017

Skill India will be celebrating its first anniversary on 15th July, 2016 and marking the day, the Hon’ble President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee will be inaugurating the first edition of “IndiaSkills Competition” on the occasion of World Youth Skills Day.

IndiaSkills is a national competition steered by Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to select the best talent who will lead India’s participation at the biennial WorldSkills International Competition scheduled at Abu Dhabi in 2017. The opening ceremony will be organized at Vigyan Bhawan on 15th July, 2016, while the main competition will be held at Pragati Maidan on 16th and 17th July, 2016.

Commenting on the occasion, Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge) said, “We are about to complete one year of Skill India and it’s a proud moment for us to celebrate our achievements and milestones over the last one year. The year has been remarkable with more than 1.04 crore youth trained under various initiative of Skill India in 2015-16, marking 36.8% growth compared to the year before. Skill development is a national priority and we are confident of maintaining the speed, scale and standard required to make this mission a success.”

“We are humbled and thankful that the Hon’ble President has accepted our invitation and agreed to celebrate the World Youth Skills Day with us. We plan to celebrate the day with great enthusiasm and request all to join us in making this day special for the country. We believe that initiatives like these will go a long way in according pride and respect to skills,” he further added.

Shri Rohit Nandan, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship said, “IndiaSkills is a big opportunity for the youth of our nation to showcase their skill sets on a global platform like WorldSkills International Competition, which is globally recognized as Olympics for Skills and is also recognised by UN, where candidates from more than 75 member countries participate This is our effort to bring recognition and respect to our country’s vibrant youth and make them more employable as per industry standards, thereby transforming the skills, labour and employment landscape of India. We are thankful to the Hon’ble President to have given us his consent to be a part of our celebrations”.

Skill India has been quite close to the President’s heart. In a recent initiative, he has ensured that 1500 employees at, the Rashtrapati Bhavan, get certified under the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) component of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), across 18 job roles. The program has ensured that the people working at the President’s house get oriented to their job roles, are assessed on their existing skills and then certified basis the National Skills Qualification Framework.

In order to select the best talent to represent India at IndiaSkills, MSDE and NSDC have completed more than 80 regional competitions in 24 skills/trades including hair stylist, welding, car painting, auto body repair, graphic designing, robotics to name a few.

Close to 4820 candidates registered to compete this year. Around 40 organisation like Mahindra, Tata, Maruti, Toyota, CII, FICCI, NASSCOM, CREDAI, NID, NIFT, have come together to make IndiaSkills a success (including consortium partners). The Sector Skill Councils are ensuring standards aligned to National Skill Qualification Framework are being followed in the competition to monitor the quality and standards of the competition which will be important to follow to compete at a world scale.

The shortlisted candidates from these events will qualify for the final selection for WorldSkills International Competition at Abu Dhabi, 2017. The competition will conclude with a closing ceremony on 17th July, 2016. It is a platform that will bring youth, industries, and educators together and provide youth an opportunity to compete, experience, and learn how to become the best in the skill of their choice.

At the last event organized at Sao Paolo, Brazil, in August 2015, a team of 29 candidates (all below 23 years of age) participated in 27 skills and won 8 medallions of excellence.

This event will bring together key stakeholders including Central Ministries/Departments, State Governments, leading Industry Bodies, and trainees. Partnerships with all these stakeholders is vital to ensure Skill India’s success.

Achievement Highlights:

The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) that was launched last year also saw some great results with close to 20 lakh people getting trained under it across 32 sectors and 416 job roles, covering 616 districts across 29 States and 6 Union Territories.

The ITI ecosystem also witnessed a huge boost with 141 new ITIs creating an additional capacity of 1.73 lakh seats over the last one year. MSDE has initiated a range of cross-sectoral partnerships, across Ministries and Departments to scale up skill training efforts. The Ministry has signed an MoU with 14 other entities like Ministries of Telecom, Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Steel and Mines, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Department of Fertilisers and Department of Pharmaceuticals, Airport Authority of India, NTPC, PowerGrid Corporation etc. on the skills agenda and infrastructure support for centres for skilling.

MSDE also partnered with countries like UK, US, Canada, Germany, France, Australia etc. on transnational standards to increase opportunities of employment for Indian youth in these geographies as well.

Under the private skill training ecosystem run by NSDC, more than 61 lakh students have been trained since 2014, in a skill of their choice. Also, 151 training partners have been added to the ecosystem.

The guidance of Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy, has also led to comprehensive reforms in the Apprenticeship Act. Due to this, apprenticeship training has seen an increase of 15% reaching the mark of 3.10 training held this year. Recently, the Union cabinet has approved an outlay of Rs.10,000 crore for providing apprenticeship training to over 5 million youngsters in the next four years in its quest to create more jobs. This is the biggest monetary reward initiative in the last seven years for skill development in India. The money allocated will be provided as incentive to industries to take more apprentices on board.