Government re-launches rural skilling programme, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana

NEW DELHI: The Centre relaunched its rural skilling programme as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana with much fanfare on Thursday, but it will continue to scout for new skills that can be added to the scheme to achieve the robust target of training a million rural youths by 2017.

Rural development minister Nitin Gadkari, addressing the National Convention on Skills for Rural and Urban Poor, asked the officials to study in depth the variety of skills available in other countries to widen the scope of training .

"I would suggest my officials study in detail the large number of skills available in China and the US that can adopted in India," Gadkari said, adding that India has 1,600 skills compared to 4,500 in China. Marking the 98th birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, the government renamed the Aajeevika Skills programme and reduced the minimum entry age to 15 years from 18 years.