NEW DELHI: With the aim to equip rural youth, especially women, with key digital skills and make them job and future-ready, Union Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launched the ‘Skills on Wheels’ initiative.
Under the initiative, 60,000 youth will be empowered over a period of five years with the objective of improving the livelihood of rural households by providing relevant skills training to the youth.
Pradhan and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Sunday launched the initiative with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and IndusInd Bank.
At the launch, Pradhan said that as a customised bus with retrofitted tools, ‘Skills On Wheels’ will take the Skill India Mission to the remotest corners of India.
The initiative will equip rural youth, particularly women with key Digital Skills and make them job and future-ready, he added.
Under the collaboration, the customized bus with retrofitted tools will promote the 'Skill India Mission’ initiative through 'Skills on Wheels.'
The bus will travel across the length and breadth of aspirational and backward districts.
Ved Mani Tiwari, CEO, of NSDC and MD, NSDC International said, "Empowering India's rural youth with the transformative power of skilling, reskilling, and upskilling is our paramount mission. This partnership, driven by NSDC CSR's dedication to catalyzing impactful collaborations between the public and private sectors, seeks to ignite innovation and growth within India's skill development landscape."
According to a statement, “The initiative is aimed at spreading awareness at the grassroots level about free skill training programs enabling youth to profoundly change the trajectory of their lives through robust skill training.”
The objective of is “to enable a large number of youth to take up industry-relevant skill training that will improve their theoretical as well as practical knowledge and help them in securing a better livelihood by bringing necessary synergy, oversight, and effective coordination.”
“It aims to bridge the gap between the skilled people required in the industry and the unemployed youth by ensuring that the right candidate with a passion for a particular job chooses the right course according to his/her academic background, aptitude, and skill set,” the statement added.