On the occasion of World Skills Day Celebration, Government of Maharashtra and Confederation of Indian Industry jointly organised a live viewing session of the Hon’ble Prime Ministers address in the city yesterday. Speaking at the session Hon’ble Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Government of Maharashtra State, Dr Ranjit Patil mentioned that reducing unemployment is the priority need of the country and skill development is both a challenge and an opportunity for achieving this goal. “At present there is 10 per cent of the state population which is vocationally skilled and there is a need to create demand and employment driven training to the youth. Government of Maharashtra looks forward to forge partnerships with industry, academic institutes and NGOs to take this forward. We look at industry to lead the skilling agenda and consider skill building as an important component of their CSR Spend” added the Hon’ble Minister, Dr Patil.
Vijay Kumar Gautam, Chief Executive Officer, Maharashtra State Skill Development Society while sharing the Hon’ble Chief Minister’s vision, mentioned that expenditure on employable education is an investment to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend. While sharing the concern faced by the state Mr Gautam mentioned that in the age group 15-29, 2% persons with formal vocational training and around 8% with non-formal vocational training enter the world of work in India. He also added that government of Maharashtra has envisaged a target of providing employable skills to 45 million people by 2022 as part of the overall plan of government of India.
The skill development agenda is a huge responsibility towards the nation’s youth and the State is ready to Deliberate, Decide and Do the needful for supporting it, mentioned S S Sandhu, Principal Secretary, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Department, Government of Maharashtra.
Mr Anil Sinha, Chairman, CII Maharashtra Panel on Skill Development and Affirmative Action and Vice President, Tata Motors while speaking at the session mentioned that CII has successfully implemented the skilling agenda with “Finishing School’ concept across Pune district. These schools will provide soft skills training to the final year ITI / Polytechnic students, improving their employability and orienting them to the organizational requirements from the very start and thus making them industry ready. Over 3000 students from the Finishing School batches in Pune at ITI Aundh, ITI Aundh (Girls), ITI Manikdoh, ITI Ghodegaon, PCMC ITI Morwadi, ITI Pimpri Chinchwad, PCMC ITI Kasarwadi (Girls), ITI Shirur and Government Polytechnic Pune have benefited from this initiative.
