Govt working to improve skills of jawans for re-employment

NEW DELHI: Government is trying to improve the skills of army jawans to help improve their re-employment prospects, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar told the Rajya Sabha.

"We are now trying to work out real skill improvement, so that they are aligned towards employment for which a lot of exercise is going on," he said.

Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, he said the resettlement training courses for jawans were temporarily put on hold to align the courses to the new norms of the government on skill development.

"It has already been decided to recommence the resettlement courses," he said in his written reply.

He said while around 40,000-50,000 jawans retired every year, around 30,000 jawans are trained for resettlement and around 5,000 go to the Defence Service Corps (DSC) while some 10,000-15,000 opt for their own available resources like agriculture.

"In fact, we are now aligning the courses for employment with at least 70 per cent success rate. So far, resettlement courses were not aligned to any employment directly. Mostly, they were getting jobs in a security agency," he said.

He added that the Ministry has also entered into an MoU on the Skill Development network belonging to Wadhwani Foundation and it is assisting the Ministry of Defence in creating various databanks and giving suggestions.

"There is no payment involved. It is done by the trust from its own funds," he said, adding that the Foundation is analysing the kind of manpower available and then find out what jobs are available in PSUs and Government services where reservation policy is there.