Skilling scheme's new avatar set to focus on women, Covid-hit workers

The government will likely roll out a new version of its flagship skilling scheme next month, with specialised training projects for women in non-traditional jobs, and reskilling and upskilling programmes for those who lost jobs amid Covid-19 and tribals.

The skills development and entrepreneurship ministry (MSDE) is awaiting the Union cabinet approval for the new version, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 4.0, a top government official told ET. PMKVY 4.0 will be an improved version of the previous programmes as the pandemic has changed the industry dynamics across sectors, the person said on condition of anonymity.

"We have identified the category of workforce and specific job roles that will be the key focus this time," the official said. "Further, there will be much greater focus on reskilling and upskilling to help the workforce who had lost jobs during the pandemic to get employment at the earliest."

One focus area of PMKVY 4.0 will be to impart skills training to women in running and maintaining electric vehicles, installing solar rooftops, and other jobs currently dominated by males, as the government aims to increase the female labour force participation.

National Skills Development Corporation will also launch special skilling projects for inclusion of tribal communities under the scheme by harnessing local resources for local markets.

The idea this time is to enable excluded communities to access greater opportunities for micro entrepreneurship through these skilling programmes, said the official cited above.

With hybrid work form becoming the new normal since the pandemic outbreak, PMKVY 4.0 will also see a greater focus on digital training while also emphasising on-the-job training component of skilling.

The launch of PMKVY 4.0 has been delayed by more than six months after the pandemic stalled work on PMKVY 3.0, as a result of which the targets set under the programme have spilled over to the current fiscal year.

The government has so far imparted skills to 13.2 million candidates till December 31, 2021, under PMKVY which was launched in 2015 in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of making India the skills capital of the world.

The programme seeks to cater to the surge in workforce demand across more than a dozen sectors getting government support under the production-linked incentives (PLI) scheme.

Under PMKVY 3.0, which was launched with a lag in January 2021 for 2020-21, the skills development ministry had targeted to train over 800,000 candidates with a budget outlay of Rs 948.9 crore. So far, about 445,000 candidates have been trained under PMKVY 3.0.