Modi government set to revamp rural skill development programmes

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi-led NDA is revamping the skills programmes for rural India, planning to provide interest subsidy to make credit cheaper and remove a cap on spending under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission.

“We are going to move a cabinet proposal,” said a rural development ministry official. The cap, currently pegged at 25% of total expenditure, curbs spending on skills initiatives needed in rural India, which has a large number of landless labourers. The move comes on the heels of the launch of Skills India, a national skills initiative.

Reorientation of some central schemes was also considered necessary in the wake of recurrent ru ral distress due to the vagaries of nature. Provisional data of the 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census released in July showed that a third of the 17.91 crore rural households is landless and depends on manual labour for income, highlighting the need to teach skills.

Currently, the Ajeevika Skills Guidelines issued by the rural development ministry in 2013 limits spending under NRLM on skills and placement through schemes such as the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojna at 25% of the total. The ministry also proposes an interest rate subvention scheme for 100 districts for cheaper credit availability to self-help groups.

“Interest rates for self-help groups can be brought down from 10% to 4% if the repayments are timely,” said a senior government official, adding that the expenditure department in the finance ministry had already approved the proposal.

The ministry sees the need to increase expenditure in the wake of the success of LIFE (Livelihoods in Full Employment), a programme under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which provides training facilities for activities ranging from beauty courses and masonry to horticulture and agriculture. Over 30 lakh workers have enrolled in the programme, opting for skill-sets they want to acquire for a livelihood.