The government will soon launch a programme to upgrade 1,000 out of the 3,000 government industrial training institutes (ITIs) across India as part of a ₹60,000 crore Centrally Sponsored Scheme approved by the Cabinet in May.
On the occasion of World Youth Skills Day on Tuesday, Union Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Jayant Chaudhary outlined various measures being undertaken to revamp ITIs with a focus on improvement of their quality.
"We are going to soon launch a programme of upgradation of ITIs in a PPP mode as we step into the next chapter, our focus must remain sharp on quality, relevance, inclusion and innovation," Secretary in Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajit Punhani said.
Addressing a press conference, the minister said the idea behind the upgradation of ITIs is to unleash the competitive spirits of India, and several ITIs have been de-affiliated owing to lakhs of vacant seats.
"We have de-affiliated ITIs in which over 4.5 lakh seats were lying vacant since 6 years after guidelines were issued in 2018. Now we are also taking action against ITIs in which 99,000 seats are lying vacant since last two years. This led to 11% rise in admissions in ITIs in 2024. We are cleaning up the system with a focus on quality," Chaudhary said.
He further informed about the upgradation plan for ITIs.
"We have to work with the states, we have to improve the governance, the quality ... So accordingly 1,000 (govt) ITIs have to be taken up. This is in hub-and-spoke model. There will be 200 hubs and 800 spokes," Chaudhary said.
He shared that several initiatives are set to be unveiled on July 22, including a programme called 'Skilling for AI Readiness' for school students studying in class 6th to 12th standard; and fresh guidelines for affiliating bodies.
"We are launching several new initiatives on July 22. We will also be inaugurating a programme called 'Skilling for AI Readiness' so this is going to be implemented in coordination with schools across the country and we are targeting 1 lakh (students) in the pilot phase. It is a free online course for students from the 6th to the 12th standard.
"We will also be putting in place new guidelines that the ministry has actively been working on, the NCVT (National Council for Vocational Training) has been working on, with regards to norms for affiliating bodies," said the minister.
Responding to a question on the issue of student dropouts from ITIs, the minister asserted that the Periodic Labour Force Survey is now tracking the NEET (not in formal education employment or training) metric which may help address the issue of dropouts and track its progress over the years once the data is collected.
"NEET, figures of not in formal education employment or training, it is a very important metric to track. We took an initiative and the Ministry of Statistics accepted it. Now we will start collecting data on the NEET in the PLFS survey. Once the data starts getting collected, over the years we can look at the progress," Chaudhary said.
In May, the Union Cabinet approved the National Scheme for Industrial Training Institute (ITI) Upgradation and Setting up of five National Centres of Excellence (NCOE) for Skilling which will be implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with outlay of ₹60,000 crore.
The Centre's share in this outlay is ₹30,000 crore, state's share ₹20,000 crore and industry share ₹10,000 crore
