The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0 will be launched to skill lakhs of youth within the next three years, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Wednesday while presenting the General Budget in Parliament.
The scheme will emphasise on-job training, industry partnership, and alignment of courses with the needs of the industry. She further highlighted that the scheme will also cover new-age courses for Industry 4.0 like coding, AI, robotics, mechatronics, IOT, 3D printing, drones, and soft skills.
”To empower our youth and help the ‘Amrit Peedhi’ realise their dreams, we have formulated the National Education Policy, focused on skilling, adopted economic policies that facilitate job creation at scale, and have supported business opportunities,” she said.
The minister said the Union Budget adopts seven priorities, which complement each other and act as the ‘Saptarishi’ guiding us through the Amrit Kaal. Youth Power is one of the priority areas which include Skill Development.
Sitharaman also proposed to set up 30 Skill India International Centres across different states to skill the youth for international opportunities.
She also announced the roll-out of Direct Benefit Transfer under a pan-India National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme to provide stipend support to 47 lakh youth in three years.
Sitharaman informed that the digital ecosystem for skilling will be further expanded with the launch of a unified Skill India Digital platform. Elaborating on the platform, she said it would enable demand-based formal skilling, link with employers including MSMEs and facilitate access to entrepreneurship schemes.