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Dimapur, Feb. 3 (EMN): As part of India’s largest skill development certification scheme, Nagaland has trained 10,475 candidates under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) since its inception in 2016.
According to a Press Information Bureau (PIB) update on Monday, there were 73.47 lakh candidates trained under this scheme in the country as of January 17, 2020.
With an objective to provide skill training to one crore youth under Short Term Training (STT) courses and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) across the country in a four year period (2016-2020), the PMKVY's focus on employment has been significantly enhanced and candidates from Nagaland have been placed in various sectors and industries, especially in hospitality.
Nagaland has been reported to have one of the highest unemployment rates among all the north-eastern states. In 2016, over 70,000 youth were registered as 'educated unemployed' with the department of Labour and Employment in Nagaland.
According to a survey by the Directorate of Evaluation, there were indications that income levels of many unskilled non-Nagas were higher than that of the locals.
A member of YouthNet Nagaland, a non-profit organisation that aims to empower youth in the state, while speaking to Eastern Mirror, said that many unemployed Naga youths are ‘lagging behind in grabbing the many opportunities available, besides government jobs’.
This, the member said, is where schemes like PMKVY come in and help the youths venture into other sectors after receiving free skill development trainings.
“The PMKVY is also a sponsored training programme at YouthNet where skills are upgraded and placements are given to the candidates in the state as well as outside,” informed the member.
“Changes in work culture and an effort to bring about the spirit of entrepreneurial activities among the unemployed are much needed at this point,” the member said.
During an inauguration of a PMKVY centre in Dimapur in 2018, state Commissioner-Secretary Anenla T Sato had said that the government was planning to train ‘every individual through such schemes’.
Around 11,000 youths should be trained ‘and 3,200 by 2020 under PMKVY’ which would only benefit Naga youths, she had asserted. "If we had such programmes two decades agao, we would have been prospering today," she had said.