State Employment Mission will offer skills training to 1.70 Lakh youths

Bhubaneswar: The State Employment Mission has set the initial target of skilling 1.70 lakh youths in different productive and employable skills during 2012-13 as its first-year target.

The Executive Committee of the SEM which met here under the chairmaship of Chief Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik on Thursday, decided to provide training to around 50,000 youths in construction sector while 30,000 will be trained in  textiles and apparel, 15,000 in driving and 30,000 in manufacturing. Besides, 10,000 each would be given skill development training in paramedics, security guard service, IT and ITES, in retail, telecom and banking sectors and 5,000 each in hospitality and in mining sectors.

According to official sources, the committee resolved to set in motion all the concerned institutions, agencies and vocational training providers during this year so that training and placement activities can be boosted in each subsequent year.

Departments like the Directorate Technical Education and Training, Panchyati Raj, Commerce and Transport, Handloom and Textiles, Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Resource Development, Women and Child Development, ST and SC Development, Housing and Urban departments have given minimum target for undertaking training of the youth.

Chief Secretary Patnaik directed all the departments to make optimum utilisation of the available infrastructure to achieve more than the minimum target. Since as many as 5,000 such cooperative societies are operating in the State in the handloom sector, it was also decided that weaving societies will be involved in skill training programmes in handloom and textiles.

Patnaik directed the Handloom and Textile Department to include the persons being trained in textile skills in Loom Distribution Programmes. He also instructed the department to include more number of women trainees in apparel training programmes. The department has also been advised to promote more and more broad looms and encourage the artisans to weave furnishing materials like bed covers, sofa covers, door and window screens, handkerchiefs etc.

He also instructed the Handloom and Textile Department to take up skill development programmes in tribal textile arts like Kotpad and develop them in clusters. The department has also been asked to promote skills in tossur cultivation as this is one of the traditional skill strengths of Odisha.

Sources said it was decided that initiatives for setting up of LMV and HMV driving training institutes by Maruti and Tata Motors will be expedited. Patnaik  has directed for completion of construction of the buildings within two months to start the training activities. It has also been decided that Toyota, Volvo and Mahindra & Mahindra will be asked to set up qualitative driving institutes in Odisha.