Notes –

MSDE & NSDC’s

Workshop

Address by Hon’ble Minister (Ministry of Skill Development and

Entrepreneurship)

The meeting was attended by Hon’ble minister and officials of the Ministry of Skill

Development and Entrepreneurship.

Minister of State: Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy

Secretary of Ministry: Shri. Sunil Arora

Joint Sectretary: Shri. Pawan Agarwal

Joint Secretary: Smt. Jyotsna Sitling

Joint Secretary: Shri. Rajesh Agarwal

Director General NSDA: Shri. J.P. Rai

MD & CEO NSDC: Mr. Dilip Chenoy

COO NSDC: Mr. Atul Bhatnagar

(For list of participants please refer to Appendix 1)

Session 1: Making SSCs For the people, Of the people, By the people

Group Chair: Ms Jyotsna Sitling, JS – MSDE

Moderator: Mr Narayanan Ramaswamy, KPMG

Group Members: Bhaskar - NIIT Yuva Jyoti Ltd

Rajiv Sharma - Empower Pragathi

V. Gayathri - LabourNet

Dr Sandhya Chintala – IT & ITeS SSC

Roopak Vashisht - Apparel SSC

Recommendations:

The focus of skilling system should be to provide learning, which makes the trainees self-

sufficient to become employable and progress in their careers. SSC certification should

act as a pull for training partners to provide employability to TP

SSCs should also focus on developing a placement framework, in order to enable

placements of the skilled following the example of Retail Sector Skill Council. In the

medium term, Job roles developed can also be linked to compensation

SSC need to organize open forums to critically examine the guidelines established by

them. They should work closely with the un-organized sector as well to create the QP

and NOSs which are job oriented

Training Partners highlighted on the need for SSCs to be cognizant about the challenge

of infrastructure faced by them.

Training partners also emphasized that the NOS-QPs as well as assessments should be

available in vernacular languages as well.

Assessment conducted by SSC needs to scale up at the same level as the trainings are

projected to scale.

To skill more people in unorganized sector, two models were proposed for Recognition

of Prior Learning (RPL) - B2B and B2C. However, in both the models the biggest

challenge highlighted was of funding, which serves as an impediment for the scheme to

achieve its true potential.

'Soft landing' for trainees - the migrant ones. Suggestions were made to set up hostels /

migration centres in key destinations. Also fund social organisations to provide comfort

Multiplicity of affiliations to be avoided. The skills ministry should take efforts to

standardise affiliations one country one standard one certificate .

Accommodate horizontal movement of labour by recognizing overlaps and prior-

learning across job profiles and many times across sectors. (As well as vertical

movement in each sector perceived currently)

SSC’s should work with organisations to define NOS for required certification so as to

improve employment opportunities

• Faculty qualification to be brought in under SSC

Session 2: Monetary Rewards Scheme – Imperatives and the Way Forward

Group Chair: Mr Pawan Agarwal, JS – MSDE

Moderator: Ms V. Gayathri , CEO LabourNet Services

Group Members: Manish Kumar - Rooman Technologies

Rajat Khawas - Manipal City and Guilds (Assessment Agency)

Mr S S Arya - Agriculture SSC

Mr Sunil Chaturvedi - Auto SSC

Ketan Kapoor - Mettl

The panel discussion covered summary of the performance of STAR 1, challenges/ feedback,

introduction to STAR 2 design and recommendations

Recommendations:

Scheme structure

Evaluate scheme predictability considering impact and communication - look at

continuing scheme for 3 years; this will ensure stakeholder commitment to invest

in infrastructure like video recording, biometric attendance etc. Care must be taken

in mandating mandatory bio-metric attendance as on the job training will be

impacted.

Rename the scheme to reduce the focus on 'Rewards' may be termed as incentive.

Rewards structure - Look at splitting the rewards fee into two parts; one on

certification and the other on retention for upskilling

Evaluate a voucher system for the next round (FY 17) and initiate different

financing options for 'viable' job roles (where there is strong learner and employer

demand)

Only first level of franchising should be allowed in terms of infrastructure and

mobilization but should be declared in advance and validated.

Permit TPs to distribute the reward to trainees after working at least for 6 to 12

months, post training. However, challenges remain on how to evidence

employment in unorganized sectors. This has to be examined.

STAR 2 could focus on unorganized sector and agriculture so that largest segments

are covered in first stage

Training & assessment

Training mobilization needs to be linked to industry demand across each sector -

look at a system of prior employer side sign-ups for placement for a set of sectors

Draw up a redressal mechanism for learners - processes, systems to be looked at

both the SSC and NSDC levels

The criteria for placement needs to be re-examined for the unorganized sector; to

map different outcomes for fresh skilling and upskilling

Pilot tracer studies to be initiated in each sector to assess training effectiveness and

productivity increase in the workplace

• Look at using social media as a medium to engage learners directly and support

communication about the scheme

• The scheme should be outcome focused and pose lesser complications than STAR 1

Training and assessment platforms

Authenticity of the assessment to be factored in - Aadhar and Photograph linkages

in SDMS

Assessment results need to have process/ technology changes - to look at T+3

timeline for results upload (up to 90% of results for assessment providers) and

should be freely available

Planned involvement of ecosystem stakeholders outside NSDC (Public sector banks,

UIDAI) to be finalized, NSDC helpdesk to support queries

Provision of Assessment scores detailing to be provided in SDMS and Certificates-

scorecard with NOS and PC level scores for learners

Session 3 - The Business of Scaling up

Group Chair: Mr Atul Bhatnagar, COO NSDC

Moderator: Ms Niraj Seth, E&Y

Group Members: Sanjeev Duggal - Centum Work Skill India Limited

Sachin Sharma – ICA Infotech

Abhinav Madan - Gram Tarang

Harpreet Singh - Plumbing SSC

James A Raphael - Retail SSC

Maj Gen DK Jamwal (Retd) - Security SSC

Recommendations:

Single window Clearance: Govt. must help established, credible organizations, who

are willing to invest, to get accelerated clearance for setup up ITIs, Polytechnics &

direct access to Govt. schemes

Delink Govt. funded schemes from pay slips – to enable placement in MSME &

unorganized sector jobs.

Develop a portal for Trainers to help linkage with the respective sectors

Create a pool of trainers from the industry especially the retired workforce to

enhance outreach and maintain quality of training

SSCs/NSDC should develop core content / curriculum for different courses. Training

Partners can have the option to add any additional content.

The Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS) run by the Ministry of Textiles

should have certification issued by the SSCs.

The big takeaway from the session was the commitment made by the Retail SSC to

absorb any RASCI certified candidate within 21 days. The house lauded the initiative

of RASCI. Other SSCs were urged to follow a similar model All agreed.

Centum Learning stated that they have 3.34 lakh job vacancies where skilled

workforce was not available. How can the skilling ecosystem address this jointly

and share such opportunities to fulfill the needs of the market.

The emphasis of skilling should be on the students studying in schools and colleges.

Universities need to come forward to sign up for skill development for the students

e.g. Delhi University, Pune University.

Focus of the skill development programmes should be on outcomes and not inputs.

There should be a common platform for all Ministries for accepting single point

certificate based on defined outcomes

Government should extend support to allow usage of existing infrastructure in rural

areas. Hostels can be used for residential training programmes.

Need to devise a mechanism to ensure migratory workforce gets the soft landing

when they join work in a new place which is required in the initial time period.

Vernacular based standards, training and assessment will help in scaling up

Identify different models for use of technology for remote areas.

Discussion Highlights

Scaling up of skill development initiatives should be seen separately for the

organised and the unorganised sectors since their contexts are very different,

Some questions to be asked before a programme is scaled up are

o Whether to do scale up first or wait for the jobs to come up and then

conduct the training?

o What mechanisms and pace needs to be followed to ensure that the

standard of training is maintained?

o Do we scale up assessments since uncertified skilled workforce exists in the

country. Recognition of Prior Learning needs to be structured.

Some strategies that have worked include

Building the right product mix –of long & short term courses (Gram Tarang)

Giving an assurance of job following a training programme (Retail SSC)

o However, there is no single business model that can work everywhere

Focus should shift from providing skills, certification and placement to developing

entrepreneurial skills. This is especially relevant for the unorganised sector.

Approach to skilling should be aligned to national missions like `Make in India’ etc.

A lot of emphasis is required to create awareness among youth to come forward to

take up jobs that are not considered aspirational but are very much in demand such

as plumbing. It is important to have differential wages for skilled and unskilled

Gram panchayats need to be made aware about the available schemes so that they

encourage students to come forward

Availability of trainers is a challenge to be overcome.

Centralised development of course material and making it accessible through

different platforms is required. It will also help to improve quality control.

Making CDs available in vernacular language would encourage aspirants.

Skill based loans should be made available on a more widespread basis.

There is a multiplicity of affiliations which delays the process. NSDC should work this

out with SSCs to make it convenient for training partners to do the work and also

work towards bringing down the assessment cost

Session 4: Raising resources for Skill India

Group Chair: Mr Rajesh Agarwal, JS – MSDE

Moderator: Mr Santanu Paul, CEO TalentSprint

Group Members: Mayukh Choudhary - Milaap

Kunal Sachdeva - Caravan Crafts retail pvt Ltd

Girish Singhania - Edubridge

Anoop Kumar D - Laurus Edutech Pvt. Ltd

Shri Raj Chatterji - State Bank of India (GM)

Ambarish Dutta - BFSI SSC

Recommendations:

Rs 5,00,000 crore is a very large amount and cannot be generated by government

funding alone. Trainees, Employers, and Banks have to get into the act by funding

scalable skill programs. (Note that banks lend 60, 00,000 crore and the amount to

support SKILL INDIA mission is only an additional 8%)

Government-funded models like STAR should be aimed at the unorganized sectoand non

attractive sectors or geographies. STAR 2 scheme can focus this.

It may be very useful to evaluate a skill voucher program to put the power of choice in

the hands of skilling aspirants. The skill voucher should be redeemable for programs

offered by NSDC partners the results of the NSDC pilot should be studied from a view

of scalability.

Corporate-funded models can be created from mandated CSR funding. A portion of the

CSR funding corpus (say 20-40%) can be earmarked for SKILL INDIA.

Corporates who invest in SKILL INDIA and/or recruit such trainees can be further

incentivised with tax incentives

Trainee-funded models must be actively encouraged for aspirational and organized job

sectors, backed by affordable skill loans from banks and specialized NBFC/MFI lenders

Entrepreneurial NBFCs/MFIs must be incubated so that an entirely new lending market

can be created. Government can provide a 10% first loss default guarantee to these

lenders, thus creating a 10X leverage of funds available for skill financing

Existing funding sources within government such as MGNREGA, unutilized skill

development funds from various ministries, Education Cess, Construction Cess (BOCW)

etc. must be tapped to increase the skilling corpus.

Special programmes to attract venture capital to this sector

The NBFC sector that works in the livelihood space should be tapped for expansion.

Session 5: Leveraging National Infrastructure for Skill India

Group Chair: Mr Dilip Chenoy , CEO NSDC

Moderator: Mr T. Murlidharan, CEO TMI

Group Members: Eika Chaturvedi Banerjee - Future Sharp Skill Limited

Prosenjit Sengupta – ASTM

Himanshu Aggarwal - Aspiring Minds Pvt. Ltd.

Ashwani Joshi - Construction SSC

Vishal Sinha- Apollo Medskills

Recommendations:

• Infrastructure should include Central, State (Gram panchayat, block level, district level

and state level), PSU, private, NGO, Employer and even existing TP infra. It should

include physical, electronic (internet and telecom), soft (content, software, trainers),

social (mobilisation, soft landing) and even pre-placement and post –placement

infrastructure.

• Physical training Infra:

• The real infra challenge for TPs is in rural and backward areas where setting up

Primary and secondary health centres can be used as training centres

• Expensive physical infra is not viable. The state and central government has a lot

of physical infra but it is badly maintained. We have to find funding mechanisms

to refurbish these infra.

• School infra should be used in idle hours. Skilling can start in students at an

early stage itself. Similarly training in Employer infra helps in getting employer

Buy-in. Both should be actively encouraged.

• Individually TPs have negotiated on their own and used Public infra but this has

to be institutionalised in a large scale.

• We have to quickly find mechanisms to incentivise (including tax incentive) the

owners of infra to share resources for skill training. For example what should be

the offer to Indian Railways to share railway platforms for skill training?

• Infra sharing agreements should include “term lease” or “pay per use”.

• Government skill policy should actively encourage infra sharing of all forms of

infra and should not insist on owned infra.

• TPs to send to NSDC a comprehensive list of Public infra available which can be

used for skill training – district wise. This should be further categorised into

schools, PSU, national priority training institutions of various ministries, railway

infra etc.

• The letter written by NSDA DG and Chairman NSDA would be sent to the

Ministry, the Ministry would write similar letters to CM’s and Chief Secretaries.

• The issue relating to the use of buildings in Industrial estates would also be

addressed a possible solution could be for a recommendation to use lease

premises in industrial estates for skill development.

• Physical non-training infra

• It is very essential to set up soft landing infra including skill hostels immediately

to ensure migrant trainee retention, post-training.

• State Government agencies including employment exchanges should play a

more active role and create post-placement support centres.

• Pre departure counselling should also be done.

• Assessment Infra:

• Assessment infra will require a lot more electronic and telecom infra in

assessment centres.

• Pooled Assessment centres (used by multiple TPs) should be encouraged.

• Many PSUs have excellent infra for assessments which should be leveraged.

• Non – physical infra:

• Sharing of Soft infra like content, software among TPs will have to encourage.

The Skillpedia web platform being set up by CMC/TCS for NSDC will be of great

help and should be expedited.

• NSDC to develop models for use of infrastructure that is made available by PSUs,

private individuals, corporates to be used for skill development.

Session 6 - Rationalization of Skill Development Schemes

Group Chair: Mr J P Rai, DG NSDA

Moderator: Mr R C M Reddy, CEO IL&FS

Group Members: Abhishek Pandit - AISECT Skill Mission Society

Sushil Ramola – B Able

Rahul Dasgupta - Globsyn Skills Development Pvt. Ltd

Meena Chaturvedi - Sahaj

Annu Wadhwa - Beauty and Wellness SSC

Recommendations:

Mr. JP Rai, at the outset, briefed the participants that a Committee was set up for

rationalization of Schemes, with NSDA’s coordination. The Committee had taken up an

exercise to develop a common framework for the skill development schemes of various

Ministries / Departments of Government of India. The framework covered the outcomes

and duration of the skills program, funding norms based on the type of programs /

geographies / target groups and other aspects of implementation. The recommendations of

this exercise are currently under active consideration of the Ministry of Skill Development.

Once these are accepted and implemented, the uncertainties related to the implementation

aspects of the Government schemes would be addressed to a large extent. With these

opening remarks, Mr. JP Rai requested Mr. Reddy to moderate the Session.

Discussion revolved around the following topics:

Placements:

o The Committee on Rationalization of Schemes has recommended that

placement and continuation in the job for a period of minimum 6 months

should be the outcome of any skill development scheme. Similarly, it

recommended wage improvement to the extent of 10% in a year as an

outcome of up-skilling program. The Panel felt that while providing a

job/income improvement to a trained candidate is a desirable outcome, the

percentage of placements and the duration in the job and other aspects need

to be re-examined. It would be difficult to evidence placement in the informal

sector. The retention of trainees was not a factor solely under control of the

training organisation.

Certification:

o Many Government schemes prescribe third party certification. However,

some of them are not specific, whether the certification needs to be through

NCVT or SSCs. The Panel felt that the Ministry of Skill Development &

Entrepreneurship (MSDE) in consultation with other Ministries, should bring

about clarity with respect to the third party certification, and accordingly

prescribe the process / framework. The SSC suggested it could be the SSC

certificate and the document should at least mention SSC certification as an

option.

Delivery Framework:

o Although, the franchise model is a universally accepted framework for

achieving scale, the skill development schemes of the Government do not

recognize / encourage a franchise network due to apprehensions related to

dilution in quality of training and outcome achievement. The Panel

recommended that an appropriate framework, under which the role of

principal training provider and the franchise partner is recognized upfront,

with safe guards to ensure accountability for the outcomes, may be

developed by the MSDE which other Ministries should comply with.

Funding:

o As opposed to the current practice of uniform rate, the funding should take

the specific requirements of Capex and Opex intensive training programs.

Similarly, the processes that make the release of funds very tedious and

lengthy need to be simplified. The Panel further recommended that the

technology led platform and processes developed by NSDC under STAR,

may be adopted by other Ministries as well for uniformity of database.

Ecosystem Enablement:

o The Panel recommended that the Ministries, in addition to funding, should

play a greater role in making the skills ecosystem becomes stronger. In

particular, the Ministries need to be more proactive in facilitating linkages

with the employers for jobs, community for mobilization of the trainees and

encouraging other institutions for sharing infrastructure.

Convergence of Schemes:

o The Panel recommended that all skill development schemes of those

Ministries which do not have their own network of training institutions

should be brought under MSDE. Implementation can be done NSDC and its

partners. This will help in avoiding duplication of efforts, optimization of

resources and greater alignment in skill development.

Skills Vouchers:

o Skill voucher program for the targeted beneficiary groups should be

evaluated to provide choices to aspirants. The Panel recommended that

MSDE may constitute an Expert Group to design a scheme appropriately

taking into account learnings from the past and the needs of the future.

Appendix 1*:

Organisation Name

Agriculture SSC S S Arya

AISECT Skill Mission Society Abhishek Pandit

Apollo Med skills pvt ltd Vishal Sinha

Apparel, Madeups & Home Furnishing SSC Roopak Vasishtha

Aspiring Minds Pvt. Ltd. Himanshu Aggarwal & Varun Aggarwal

ASTM Prosenjit Sengupta

Automotive SSC Sunil Chaturvedi

Aviation & Aerospace SSC A N Chandramouli

Avon Facilty Management Ltd. Neeraj (email)

BASIX Academy for Building Lifelong Employability Limited (B-ABLE) Sushil Ramola

Beauty & wellenss SSC Annu Wadhwa

BFSI SSC Ambarish Dutta

Cap Wdi Pvt. Ltd. Nalini Gangadharan

Capital Goods SSC Inder S Gahlaut

Centum Work Skill India Limited Sanjeev Duggal

CII Sougata Roy Choudhary

Construction SSC J Ganguly

Caravan crafts retails pvt Ltd Kunal Sachdeva

Don Bosco Tech Society Biswas Talukdar

Drishtee Skill Development Center Private Limited Satyan Mishri

E&Y Amar Shankar

E&Y Niraj Seth

Earthmoving & Infrastructure Building SSC H S Mohan

Edubridge Learning Private Limited Girish Singhania

Electronic Sector SSC N K Mohapatra

Emerge Vocational Skills Pvt Ltd Someone from office(email)

Empower Pragathi Rajiv Sharma

FICCI Anaam Sharma

Food Industry Capacity & Skill Initiative Anaam Sharma

F-Tec Mallikarjuna Iytha

Future Sharp Skill Limited Eika Chaturvedi Banerjee

Gems & Jewellery SSC Binit Bhatt

Globsyn Skills Development Pvt. Ltd. Rahul Dasgupta

Gram Tarang Abhinav Madan

Handicrafts SSC Rajesh Rawat

Healthcare SSC Ashish Jain

Hydro Carbon SSC Ramagriha

ICA Sachin Sharma

ICICI Manish Kumar

IL & FS Skills Development Corporation Ltd. RCM Reddy

India Skills Smitanjali Palai

Iron & Steel SSC Sushim Banerjee

IT-ITeS SSC Sandhya Chintala

Kashi Vishwanatha Vidya Samasthe (KVVS) Mayukh Choudhary

Kherwadi Shivani Mehta

KPMG Narayanan Ramaswamy

LabourNet Services Gayathri

Laqsh Job Skills Academy Pvt Ltd Revathi Kasturi

Laurus Edutech Pvt. Ltd Anurag Jain and Anoop Kumar D

Leather SSC Ramesh Kumar

Life Sciences SSC Ranjit Madan

Logistics SSC M J Suresh Kumar

Madura Microfinance A. Ravishankar

Manipal City and Guilds Rajat Khawas

McKinsey Indrojit Banerjee

Media & Entertainment SSC Leena Jaisani

Mettl Ketan Kapoor

Mining SSC L P Sonkar

MSDE Shivi Anand

MSDE Reshma Chandra

NIIT Yuva Jyoti Ltd Bhaskar Ballave

NSDA Meghna

Orion Edutech Manish Agarwal

Plumbing SSC Harpreet Singh

Power SSC V K Kanjlia

Pratham Azeez Gupta

Retail SSC James A Raphael

Rooman Technologies Manish Kumar

Rubber SSC Anupama Giri

Sahaj Meena Chaturvedi & Pankaj Jindal

SBI Shyam Sundar Dhawan

SBI Mandira Saha

Security SSC Maj Gen DK Jamwal (Retd)

Skill Source Manish Jar

Sports, Physical Education, Fitness and Leisure SSC

Rajpal Singh

TalentSprint Santanu Paul

Telecom SSC Lt Gen (Retd) SP Kochhar

Textiles & Handloom SSC J Rao

TMI group T. Murlidharan

Tourism & Hospitality SSC Praveen Roy

Vidyanta Naveen Trehan & Jonathon Lance

Wadhwani Foundation Ajay Goyal

NSDC Staff

*This is a representative list and might not include everyone present.