The School of Tribal Resource Management (STRM), KISS-DU, under the Skill India flagship programme and funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, organized a workshop on “Skill India’s Impact on Grassroot Employability of Youth: A Snapshot from Select Areas of Odisha” on 27th February 2024.
Dr. Anwesha Chakrabory, Assistant Professor, Geography Programme (STRM) and Project Coordinator, set the tone of the workshop and shared its aims and objectives. She added that India boasts of a massive 467.6 million strong labor force. However, sadly, about 8.11 % of this labor force is unemployed or underemployed. Skill India Mission, otherwise known as the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (Prime Minister’s Skill Development Programme) was launched to counter this on 15th July 2015. Further, she also highlighted the core objectives of this scheme which is to train 300 – 400 million Indians in different vocational skillsets such that they can be gradually empowered to be readily absorbed into the workforce. Speaking in turn, the Project Coordinator from IMI Bhubaneswar, Dr. Pratyush Banerjee spoke about the project at length and shared the objectives, hypotheses, methodologies and findings of the above mentioned project.
The workshop was attended by the senior functionaries of KISS-DU, Chairperson Council of Deans, Deans, Directors, and Faculty Members. During their deliberations, they recommend some policies in this regard and put forth valuable suggestions to enhance the qualitative value of the project.
