New Delhi: The 2nd edition of ‘Awards for Excellence in District Skill Development Planning’ (DSDP) were recently organised here at Dr Ambedkar International Centre where top 30 districts were awarded for their innovative best practices in skill development in the region. Rajkot in Gujarat, Cachar in Assam and Satara in Maharashtra respectively were ranked top three among all participating districts.

District Collectors, District Magistrates and other representatives from across 30 States attended the award ceremony and shared their ideas and experiences and presented the skill development work done at the grassroots level in their districts. Later in an interactive session, the officials met Union Minister of Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan, and Minister of State (MoS) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar and shared best practices and work done in their region.

Pradhan asked the District Collectors, District Magistrates and other officials to carry out demand-mapping of the skilled workforce and drive awareness about skill development initiatives at the local level. He said that skilling is a lifelong process and the DCs should further the entire continuum of skill development and work towards strengthening the skill development ecosystem through innovative planning at the district level.

Chandrasekhar said the awards were reflective of the Centre’s intention to build an ancillary skill ecosystem where multi-skilling opportunities gave rise to ‘village engineers’ and increased livelihood chances. The science and method behind skill planning should aim to catalyse the local economy by creating multiple avenues of skilling and multiple job roles, he said.

Lauding the work done by the districts, Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said that riding on its unique demographic dividend, India is on the path to fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of becoming the skill capital of the world. Many countries with ageing populations are banking on India for skilled workers.

Short shelf life and high transportation cost were posing a supply chain challenge to pineapple farmers of Assam’s Cachar district, forcing them to dispose of large quantities of the fruit and sell them at sub-par market prices. By setting up a processing unit for manufacturing pineapple products locally, the Cachar DSC came up with a quick solution to address the problem. At Satara in Maharashtra, the DSC implemented various programmes to strengthen skilling, and training a workforce for disaster management. The district also has the responsibility of empowering women affected during Covid-19 pandemic with skill training.

The districts which were honoured included: Gujarat: Rajkot, Patan, Surendranagar; Assam: Cachar; Maharashtra: Satara, Sindhudurg, Washim, Thane, Solapur; Kerala: Malappuram; Uttarakhand: Rudraprayag, Bageshwar; Bihar: Gaya, Araria; Chhattisgarh: Dantewada, Mahasamund; Uttar Pradesh: Bahraich, Ghaziabad, Chandauli, Sonbhadra; Himachal Pradesh: Mandi; Tamil Nadu: Tiruppur; Madhya Pradesh: Singrauli; Chandigarh: Chandigarh; Jharkhand: Giridih; Karnataka: Raichur; Kerala: Thrissur; Andhra Pradesh: Visakhapatnam, Prakasam; and Haryana: Nuh /BI/