Shillong, Oct 1: Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Jayant Chaudhary has underlined the need to prepare a roadmap for skill development and entrepreneurship in the region.
While speaking during the North East Skill and Entrepreneurship Conclave 2024 held at IIM, Shillong, Chaudhary said that the various States of the North Eastern region have different varying priorities and models for enhancing skill development and entrepreneurship.
He said that it cannot be a unitary approach since India can never succeed and move ahead with that kind of thinking.
“And if you look at assertions of the Prime Minister, at many stages, he talks about competitive and cooperative federalism, and there are institutional mechanisms that play. Even if a very dominant central government comes in power it cannot trample over the democratic institution, their systems and the methodologies. So we are and will remain a strong federal structure,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said that some States have skilled development under the Labour department or other might have separate skill development departments since it is not streamlined.
“Even at the Centre it has only been about 10 years that the ministry of Skill Development was formed,” Chaudhary said.
Meanwhile, he expressed happiness on the presentations which were made by the bureaucrats of the different States on the roadmap for skill development.
“Yes, some of the presentations were simplistic. But there was a passion. There was a sense of commitment,” he said.
According to him, the presentation given by the States clearly shows that there is clarity in thinking which was not ever visible in the government of India.
Talking about Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), he said that the Central Government has given a budget for strengthening and upgrading of 1000 ITIs across the country.
“The institute has a long history. Yes, some of them are old, but now we have a mandate to strengthen the ITIs. I don’t remember any budget in the country mentioned about ITIs in the budget speech,” Chaudhary said.
He also mentioned that there are different models to run the ITIs and it should not always be government run and it can be in a public private partnership mode.
“We need to adopt the right system where people who are part of the system are benefited. We will have people from the private sector come on board to give their expertise and investment on how to strengthen the ITIs,” he said.
Further, Chaudhary said that they have been receiving cooperation from the States to be able to send a contingent to the World Skills Competition in Lyon, France.
According to him, it will be a great thing if a platform can be created to compete at the very best level and at the global scene.
‘My ministry is working to formalize this because every two years this global event is going to take place. We will prepare since the completion in two years time is going to be held in China and then in Japan. The preparation for these events will be part of our calendar,” he added.
Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship said that they are preparing a scheme at the central level to support the competitors to make the champions at the global scene.