India Inc joins govt to train rural youth

A host of big names in the Indian industrial houses, including the likes of Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, NIIT, IL&FS, Lupin Labs, Construction Industry Development Council and Dr Reddy’s Laboratory, L&T etc have agreed to partner with the UPA II’s ambitious National Rural Livelihood Mission programme to train unemployed youth.

Buoyed with success of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) - dubbed as vote cater and responsible for bringing the UPA to power for second time - the Congress-led Union Government had announced in its budget launch of National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) to train 1.1.lakh unskilled youth from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in every year.

The scheme now has taken shape and the government has decided to rope in industries to partner with it to give training as well as absorb them.

As per the proposal before the Rural Development Ministry, private sector companies and non-government organisations (NGOs) will train such youths for 2-3 months. The government will spend Rs 10,000 per individual and the companies will have to absorb at least 75 per cent of the people trained by them, a senior official in the Rural Development Ministry told Deccan Herald.

“If the youth wants to start self employment, the Government will also help them”, official said.  The Ministry believes the scheme needed around Rs 10,000 crore fund and the proposal is likely to come up before the Union Cabinet for its nod soon.  The training of unskilled youth will be in booming sectors like hospitality sector, security services, retail, driving, mining, oil exploration, drilling, roads and ports and other construction industry.
Some of the companies have agreed to part with their existing charity arm for training and few of them have also agreed to open separate unit for this programme exclusively under corporate social responsibility.

The Ministry had earlier constituted an expert committee with the big names in the industry like Nasscom former chairman Kiran Karnik, Infosys Board member T V Mohandas Pai and others to shape this scheme.