• Rail Kaushal Vikas Yojana, a programme under the aegis of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), was launched to empower youth by way of providing entry level training in industry relevant skills through Railway training institutes.

• The aim of this initiative is to impart training skills to the youth in various trades to bring qualitative improvement.

• Banaras Loco Works, Varanasi has been nominated as the nodal PU for coordinating/organising the skill development programme under RKVY.

• The training commenced in September 2021 on pan-India basis. 

• So far, 23,181 candidates have been enrolled under RKVY and 15,665 candidates have completed their training successfully.

• Under this scheme, the training is imparted in 14 industry relevant technical trades such as electrician, welder, machinist, fitter, etc at 94 training locations which are generally spread across more than one state/Union Territory including remote locations spread over Indian Railways.

• The training is provided free of cost to the candidates from across the country.

• There is no provision of providing employment under this scheme. However, this scheme is a skill development programme for the unemployed youths of India to impart technical training in various trades to enhance their employability and entrepreneurship.

Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana

• The first version of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) scheme was launched in 2015 to encourage and promote skill development in the country by providing free short duration skill training and incentivising this by providing monetary rewards to youth for skill certification.

• During its pilot phase, around 19.85 lakh candidates were trained across the country.

• The overall idea was to boost employability of youth corresponding to the industrial demand.

• After the successful implementation of PMKVY (2015-16) and learnings from the past, PMKVY 2.0 (2016-20) was launched with an outlay of Rs 12,000 crore by scaling up sectors, geographies and by greater alignment with other missions/programmes of government of India such as ‘Make in India’, ‘Digital India’ and ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’. 

• PMKVY 2.0 provided a larger role to the state governments by introducing Centrally Sponsored State Managed (CSSM) known as the state component under the scheme. 

• Placement-linked short term training programme was also introduced along with training of trainers and Aadhaar based attendance system.

• Based on the learnings of PMKVY 2.0 and to reorient the scheme to be in sync with the present scenario of policy changes and changing priority in different sectors, it was decided to speed up the implementation of PMKVY 3.0.

• Under Skill India Mission, the ministry launched the third phase of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY 3.0) on January 15, 2021 to train eight lakh people across the country with an outlay of Rs 948.90 crore.

• Under the scheme, the District Skill Committee (DSC) is the focal point for its implementation. DSC shall have a major role in preparation of district level plan, mobilisation and counselling of candidates, formation of training batches, monitoring of quality assurance & post training support.

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