The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has announced launch of Pradhan Mantri Yuva Yojana to scale up an ecosystem of entrepreneurship for youngsters. The scheme spans over five years (2016-17 to 2020-21) with a project cost of Rs 499.94 crore and will provide entrepreneurship education and training to over 7 lakh students in 5 years through 3,050 institutes.

• The institutes under the PM’s Yuva Yojana include 2,200 institutes of higher learning (colleges, universities, and premier institutes), 300 schools, 500 ITIs and 50 entrepreneurship development centres through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
• The announcement on scheme was made at a day-long national conference of state ministers on ‘Skilling with quality’, which saw more than 80 per cent of the states making their representations.

Do you know?

• The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship is an Ministry of Government of India set up on 9 November 2014 to coordinate all skill development efforts across the country.
• Industrial Training and Apprenticeship and other skill development responsibilities were transferred from the Ministry of Labour and Employment to this newly made Ministry on 16 April 2015.
• It aims to remove disconnect between demand and supply of skilled manpower, to build the new skills and innovative thinking not only for existing jobs but also jobs that are to be created.
• Rajiv Pratap Rudy is Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in Narendra Modi’s government, a key ministry in view of Modi’s slogan of ‘Make in India’ and associated attempts to make India a production hub.