JOIN USThe Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) on Sunday welcomed the first batch of 74 students under the Mahatma Gandhi National fellowship (MGNF) programme.
The IIMB programme, supported by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, will give the students an opportunity to contribute to enhancing skill development and promoting rural employment at the district level.
“It aims to strengthen the district-level skill ecosystem by providing academic inputs and a field immersion component that jointly seeks to raise economic output and promote livelihood in rural areas,” the institute said in a statement.
The first cohort, comprising 44% women, will be placed in 74 districts across Gujarat, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. They will be awarded certificates
upon the completion of these components.
Programme Director Arnab Mukherji, a faculty member from the public policy area at the IIMB, said the programme focused on the district as the unit of economic activity and inverted the top-down process endemic to public policy. “At another level, it seeks to build bridges to enable go-to-market strategies and create value chains and skill growth pathways that start from the district and link to domestic and international markets. We hope the cohort will uncover a constellation of culturally appropriate pathways for sustainable incomes by creating inclusive skilling ecosystems,” he explained.
Union Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Mahendra Nath Pandey said: “Unless we involve the districts, which are the engines of growth in our economy, in the skill development drive, we cannot hope to achieve our goal of making India the skill capital of the world.”
Praveen Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said he hoped to extend the MGNF programme to all districts in the country.