ACTION PLAN FOR SKILLING OF MARGINALIZED SECTIONS BELONGING TO SC, OBC AND SANITATION WORKERS, TRANSGENDERS AND OTHER SUCH CATEGORIES
- BACKGROUND
The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment (MoSJ&E), caters for empowerment of the socially, educationally and economically marginalized sections of the society including SCs, OBCs, Sr. Citizens, victims of alcoholism and substances abuse, transgender persons, De-notified Tribes (DNTs), EBCs, Safai Karamcharies, Waste Pickers and Manual Scavengers. Most of the persons of target group are having minimal economic assets; therefore, provision of training and enhancing their competencies is essential for economic empowerment/ upliftment of these marginalized target groups.
Many of the persons of target group belong to the category of rural artisans who have become marginalized owing to coming of better technologies in market. There is also a need to empower the women amongst the target group, who, due to their overall domestic compulsions, cannot be involved in wage employment which normally involves long working hours and sometimes migration to other cities. Similar challenges are faced by members of Sanitation Workers & Waste Pickers communities who find it difficult to get into mainstream alternate occupations and are forced to therefore engage in self-employment activities.
Similarly, the youth amongst the target group, owing to their educational backwardness also find it difficult to obtain employment with good compensation after undergoing short-term skilling courses. On the other hand it is observed that the long term vocational courses being conducted by ITIs with better market prospects are having large number of vacancies in the SC and OBC categories.
In view of the above, there is a dire need to go beyond routine skilling and instead enhance their competency levels so that artisans may improve on their revenue generation capacities within their practicing vocations, the women may enter into self-employment thereby financially empowering themselves without neglecting their domestic activities and the youth may acquire long-term training and specialization in employable vocations giving them better standing in the job market. They would either require to undergo long term programmes including ITI courses with better market for jobs or alternatively imparted some entrepreneurial development training enabling them to offer some financing and start their own small ventures.
With the above in mind, a National Action Plan for the marginalized persons of SC, OBC, EBC, DNT, Sanitation workers including waste pickers, manual scavengers, transgenders and other similar categories named ‘Pradhan Mantri Dakshta Aur Kushalta Sampann Hitgrahi’ (DAKSH) Yojana is proposed to be put in place with a multi-pronged strategy to improve the all-round competency and adeptness of and10 lakh persons of these categories over the next four years, beginning with nearly 1.5 lakh youth in the first year i.e. 2020-21
For more information click the link provided below:
https://nbcfdc.gov.in/pm-daksh/en
