CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin inaugurated the first State-level Youth Skill Development Festival in Chennai on Wednesday. In the coming days, this festival will be organised in association with government departments and the private sector in all the 388 panchayat unions across the State at a total cost of Rs 194 crore to help the youth get information about employment opportunities and skill development.
In a nutshell, these festivals will serve as a bridge between the youth and the skill development organisations. The first Youth Skills Festival, organised at the Queen Mary’s College, has counselling halls for youth, and counters for the women selfhelp groups to sell their products.
Also, youth who wish to take part in festivals in other parts of the State can register here. In the counselling centres, experts from the fields of electronics, IT, IT-enabled services, readymade dress designing, banking, finance, insurance, handicraft, jewellery design, food processing, etc., will guide the youth. Stalin inspected the stalls put up by SHGs and interacted with youth gathered at counselling centres. He also presented skill development training certificates and appointment orders to the youth.
Besides, he also presented credit linkage worth Rs 25.66 crore to 608 women SHGs for running vegetable and fruit shops, grocery shops, petty shops, tailoring shops, etc. The exhibition of SHGs will continue till May 29. The CM recalled how he had supported the agitation of the students of Queen Mary’s College two decades ago when there was an effort to build a new Secretariat by pulling down the buildings there. “...I supported the students’ agitation and was subsequently arrested for ‘trespassing’ into the college and imprisoned in the Capper prison in Cuddalore district,” he said.
Stalin said it was former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi who established the Tamil Nadu Skill Development Mission (TNSDM) in 2010 to provide skill development training to the youth. It was the first-of-its-kind initiative in India at that time. Now, the present government has been implementing Naan Mudhalvan as an extension of TNSDM.
Every year, special skills of five lakh youth would be identified and training would be imparted to enhance their skills. S Pavithra, one of the students attending the festival, told TNIE,“Despite completing graduation and postgraduation, a lot of people are rendered jobless as they lack skills.
Through the exhibition, experts are imparting skills in various fields like web development, software engineering, aviation, photography among others. This is free and a certificate is also provided by the end of it. This might help us land jobs.”
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