Rail Kaushal Vikas Yojana

Why is in news? Indian Railways imparts training to more than 15000 Candidates under Rail Kaushal Vikas Yojana

The Ministry of Railways launched Rail Kaushal Vikas Yojana (RKVY) under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY).

This is a skill development programme, where training will be provided to youth with a special focus on jobs that are relevant to the Railways.

The training will be provided in four trades viz. Electrician, Welder, Machinist and Fitter and other trades will be added by zonal railways and Production units based on regional demands and needs assessment.

Training will be provided to apprentices under the Apprentice Act 1961.

The objective is to impart training skills to the youth in various trades to bring qualitative improvement. To train 50,000 candidates over the next three years.

Eligibility: Candidates who are 10th passed and between 18-35 years shall be eligible to apply. Participants in the scheme shall however have no claim to seek employment in Railways on the basis of this training.

The scheme will not only improve the employability of the youth but also upgrade the skills of self-employed and those who are working with contractors through reskilling and up-skilling.

Banaras Loco Works, Varanasi has been nominated as the nodal PU for coordinating / organizing the skill development program under RKVY. The training has 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.

The candidates from any part of the country can join this training. The training is provided free of cost to the candidates. A dedicated website has been developed for monitoring RKVY.

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:

It was launched in 2015, it is a flagship program of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE).

It aims to mobilize youth to take up skill training with the aim of increasing productivity and aligning the training and certification to the needs of the country.

Owing to the success of PMKVY 1.0 wherein more than 19 lakh students were trained as against the target of 24 lakh, the scheme was relaunched as PMKVY 2.0 (2016-2020) with an allocated budget of Rs. 12000 Crores that aimed to train 10 million youth by the year 2020.

And further PMKVY 3.0 was launched in 2021, in a bid to empower India’s youth with employable skills by making over 300 skill courses available to them. It envisages training of eight lakh candidates over a scheme period of 2020-2021 with an outlay of Rs. 948.90 crore.