Narendra Modi government commits Rs 500 crore to make urban poor employable

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday declared it would spend Rs 500 crore on skill development of urban poor barely a few hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ' Make in India' plan, which also targets to create more job opportunity for the youth.

At least four major private companies also made a commitment to hire at least 30,000 rural youth who have got skill training in the next three years.

The skill development scheme has been named as 'Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana - DAY' and the announcement was made by housing and poverty alleviation minister M Venkaiah Naidu and rural development minister Nitin Gadkari. Naidu said that while the current urban poverty alleviation programme covers only 790 cities and towns the government will now extend these to all the 4,041 statutory cities and towns.

Out of Rs 1,000 cr budgetary provision for urban poverty alleviation during this financial year, 50 per cent will be spent on skill development that would benefit over five lakh urban poor.

Under its urban component DAY will focus on imparting skills with an expenditure of Rs 15,000 - Rs 18,000 on each urban poor. It will also help promote self-employment by setting up individual micro-enterprises and group enterprises. The government will also extend interest subsidy for individual projects costing Rs 2 lakh and Rs 10 lakh for group enterprises. The subsidised interest rate will be 7 per cent.

Moreover, there will be provision for enabling urban poor to form self-help groups for meeting financial and social needs with a support of Rs 10,000 for each group who would in turn be helped with bank linkages.

Gadkari said that his ministry has reduced the age limit for rural persons from 18 years to 15 years to get skill training under government schemes. He also asked his ministry officials to look into the provision of providing some kind of skill training to differently abled persons so that they can also become employable.