Skill India 'relaunching' of UPA programme: Congress

NEW DELHI: Congress today sought to puncture Prime Minister Narendra Modi's launch of the ambitious 'Skill India' Mission, insisting that a massive programme for skill development was launched by the party-led UPA five years back.

"What Prime Minister did today could be called relaunching of the programme which was started way back in 2010," party spokesman R P N Singh said.

Singh, a former Union Minister, said that the previous government had turned the skill development into a flagship programme in 2013 and had also set up a National Skill Development Corporation.

It had appointed as many as 1722 trainers who along with 160 stakeholders were instrumental in training as many as 35 lakh people.

The Prime Minister while launching the Mission today said India should emerge as the "human resource capital" of the world as China has become a global "manufacturing factory".

He said India has the potential to provide a workforce of about 4 to 5 crore to the world if the capabilities of the countrymen are honed through proper and dynamic training in skills and added that the government is focused on this aspect.