25th September, 2014 was declared the ‘Antyodaya Diwas’ in honour of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s 98th Birth Anniversary. It was the same day when the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) revamped its existing skill development program called Aajeevika Skills as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) which emphasized on greater access, coverage and quality. DDU-GKY is now a demand driven placement-linked skilling initiative which seeks to enable rural poor youth to benefit from national and international employment opportunities.

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana

The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) announced the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) Antyodaya Diwas, on 25th September 2014. DDU-GKY is a part of the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).

The vision says "Transform rural poor youth into an economically independent and globally relevant workforce".

Need for DDU-GKY

    • Over 180 million or 69% of the country’s youth population between the ages of 18 and 34 years, live in its rural areas. 

    • Of these, the bottom of the pyramid youth from poor families with no or marginal employment number about 55 million.

    • The National Policy for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship 2015 has identified a skills gap of 109.73 million in 24 key sectors by the year 2022. This number cannot be achieved without addressing the BoP 55 million from rural India.

    • FICCI and Ernst – Young study published in 2013 identified a shortage of over 47 million skilled workers across the globe by 2020.

    • Opportunity for India to train its BoP youth population and place them in jobs across the world and realize its demographic dividend.

Objective

    • To add diversity to the incomes of rural poor families.

    • To cater to the career aspirations of rural youth.

Salient Features

    • Enable poor and marginalized to access benefits. The scheme includes demand-led skill training at no cost to the rural poor. Focus is on rural youth between the ages of 15 and 35 years from poor families.

    • Inclusive program designed to mandatorily cover socially disadvantaged groups (SC/ST 50%; Minority 15%; Women 33%)

    • Shifting emphasis from training to career progression. Pioneers in providing incentives for job retention, career progression and foreign placements. In order to energize and build mass support as well as create awareness amongst the rural youth, the DDU-GKY projects are market linked and implemented in PPP mode.

    • Industry partnerships allow access to new technology and on the job training.

    • Greater support for placed candidates which includes post-placement support, migration support and alumni network.

    • Proactive approach to build placement partnerships with guaranteed placement for at least 75% trained candidates, through the support of training partners and employer engagement.

    • Enhancing the capacity of implementation partners by nurturing new training service providers and developing their skills.

    • Regional focus with greater emphasis on projects for poor rural youth in Jammu & Kashmir, the North-East region and 27 Left-wing Extremist districts.

    • Standards-led delivery: All program activities are subject to Standard Operating Procedures that are not open to interpretation by local inspectors. All inspectors are supported by geo-tagged time stamped videos/photographs.

    • Biometric attendance is to de-duplicate beneficiaries and prevent recycling of candidates.

    • Curriculum framing and assessment support is through NCVT (National Council on Vocational Training) or SSCs (Sector Skills Councils).

    • Focus on sustainability

        ◦ Need for training in soft skills, team working etc., as more important than domain skills, which they learn on the job.

        ◦ DDU-GKY has mandated a minimum of 160 hours of training in soft skills, function English and computer literacy.

        ◦ A finishing module called Work Readiness training is suggested to ensure that trained candidates hit the ground running wherever they join.

    • Benefits to candidates are in the form of free training, free uniform, free course material, free lodging and board in case of residential programs, reimbursements of expenses in non-residential programs, post placement salary top-ups every month for 2-6 months depending on location of placement and placement for at least 70% of all trained with a minimum salary of Rs. 6,000/- per month (as cost to company).

    • Quality Assurance Framework

    • To define minimum service level benchmarks and standards, controls & audits, defaults and remedial actions to ensure quality assurance framework.

    • Inclusion and self-regulation, with assigned role and responsibilities for Q-Teams within the PIAs.

    • Transparency and accountability is fostered through the end-to-end implementation of Public Financial Management System (PFMS) as the channel for fund disbursals and audits.

    • Employing Technology in implementation

        ◦ A Geo-Tagged Time Stamped Biometric Attendance Record: similar to what the candidates will eventually find in most organizations. This serves a dual purpose of being a monitoring tool, and also it also making candidates familiar with modern technology. 

        ◦ Provision of a Tablet PC per candidate at the training centre. This enables candidates to learn at their own pace. 

        ◦ Presence of Computer Labs and e-Learning at Training Centres, to ensure that all candidates have access to a wider curricula and adequate learning opportunities.

        ◦ DDU-GKY ensures that all Training partners invest in IT infrastructure and is working on a nation-wide network for sharing real-time performance data, meaningful graduate and financial information and creating a strong independent Placement Initiative.

Current Status

    • DDU-GKY is present in 28 States and UTs, across 689 districts, impacting youth from over 7,426 blocks.

    • It currently has over 1,575 projects being implemented by over 717 partners, in more than 502 trades from 50 industry sectors.

    • Over 9.9 Lakh candidates have been trained and over 5.3 Lakh candidates have been placed in jobs as on 1st April, 2020.

    • From 2012, DDU-GKY has so far committed an investment of more than INR 5,600 Crores, impacting rural youth Pan-India.

Antyodaya Diwas

Antyodaya means uplifting of the weakest section of the society. The spirit of Antyodaya Mission lies in ‘reaching out to the last person’. 25th September is observed as the ‘Antyodaya Diwas’ across country in honour of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Birth Anniversary. Several activities including blood donation camps, seminar, symposia were organised on this occasion across the country. 

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)