Antyodaya Diwas....Bharat ke kaushalzaade....

Antyodaya Diwas....Bharat ke kaushalzaade....

"Antyodaya", upholds the ideal of upliftment of the last person and is the ultimate goal of Mission Antyodaya envisioned by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. The Mission Antyodaya programme launched last year for ensuring overall development of villages has been extended throughout the country with the clarion call of "Sabki Yojana, Sabka Vikas" and will culminate on 31st December with the finalisation of the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP).
The 'Antyodaya Diwas" was celebrated yesterday on the birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay, a noted philosopher, historian and political activist.
The National Rural Livelihoods Mission focusses on sustainable livelihoods in rural areas through capacity building and extensive support for enhancing productivity, opening avenues for alternate enterprises and Skilling of youth.
Skilling of rural youth is the ultimate challenge for a country where conventional education has more respect. It is only off late  that efforts are being made to mainstream vocational education and conceptualise different ways to skill youth.

The Deendayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushal Yojana under the MoRD has a target of skilling youth in various trades and also placing them in jobs through private partnerships with recognized institutions, that is the PIAs, Project Implementation Agencies.
However providing jobs for all is a tall order and therefore training for self-employment which can facilitate more jobs is done through RSETIs, Rural Self-employment Training Institutes managed by the Nationalised Banks of the country.
Till date 29000 youth have been skilled through DDUGKY and about 12900 have been placed in Maharashtra. More than one lakh beneficiaries have been trained for self-employment through RSETIs. A lot of effort has been put in by various stakeholders to make these programmes a success.
The Antyodaya Diwas celebrations provided us with the opportunity for felictaitng the Project Directors, DRDA of the best performing districts, the PIAs of DDUGKY, the officials of the banks, the employers of youth skilled under DDUGKY and Skill Icons of both the schemes.
The Best districts, Nanded, Yawatmal, Gondiya, Nagpur and Nashik for DDUGKY were chosen on the best performance of achievement of targets in training and placement.
The best PIA’s, Dhatri Foundation, Focus Educare and Shri Technologies. under DDUGKY were shortlisted on the basis of target allotted, trained and placed, overall infrastructure, training quality and placement retention.
Training candidates is the first task but getting suitable employers and ensuring that they get retained there is another important aspect therefore awards were given to the Best Employers on the basis of maximum salary given by the employer to the trained candidates and those where numbers of candidates working from last 9 months was the highest. These included, Kochar private limited, Aegis Global and Tirumala facility Management (D-Mart).
Attrition is one of the main challenges after skilling and therefore the day was also to be celebrated for recognising the Skill Icons , Bharat Ke Kaushalzaade. Thirteen candidates trained under DDUGKY and who had continued to work for at least one year in establishment like Bharat Forge, DMart, Kochar private limited, Aaji Homecare, Cafe Coffee Day, Jupiter Hospital etc were chosen as Skill Icons.
Bankers who had excelled in training at RSETIs and provided credit linkage for establishing enterprises and also had the best settlement rates were also felicitated. These included Kolhapur, Gadhchiroli, Latur, Thane, Jalna, Solapur, Sangli with prominent banks like the Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India and State Bank of India. PD, DRDA , Osmanabaf, Nandurbar and Parbhani were felicitated for best mobilisation of BPL candidates for RSETI.
Five RSETI Skill Icons were chosen which included Mr. Arun Ahire who is a differently abled and has established a business of Autorickshaw.
The icing on the cake was the heartfelt speech by RSETI Skill Icon, Girish Patil from RSETI Nandurbar. Confessing that he already knew photography but had joined RSETI only in need of a certificate and his ultimate realisation that he had not only to learn a lot in the field but also learn good behaviour was heart touching. He gave full credit to RSETI Nadurbar for his growth from a small time photographer to a recognised professional photographer in the district. Beginning with one camera and computer, he now has three computers and  over 100 customers a day. He also doubles up as a trainer at the RSETI and has employed five students trained at RSETI to work with him. His confidence was so endearing, a life-like representation of the ultimate goal of self-employment.
May he continue to prosper and may his enthusiasm be infectious enough to inspire many more and lead us all to achieve this ultimate goal of Antyodaya.....