Bhopal : The mission of state government to train youths in various market oriented skills to help get placements in multinational companies seems to remain unachieved. Reasons behind the claim are many.
To one’s wonder, works for the ambitious Global Skills Park (GSP) project, which was scheduled to be completed by August 2018 and for which foundation stone was laid by the then Union minister for skill development Rajiv Pratap Rudy and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in July 2017, are yet to even take off with just less than six months left to the deadline.
Initially, it was decided to run the park from IIT campus on temporary basis from October 2017 to at least begin the training of youths and shift it later once the facility is built. However, at this stage one would be stupid enough to expect its accomplishment by this year, let alone the scheduled deadline and evidently, the plan of skill development department to start training from August is doomed.
Revenue department had allotted 35-acre land inside the city’s BHEL campus for the skill development department to setup the facility after acquiring from irrigation department. A whopping Rs 100 crore fund was also given by the state government towards the project while Asian Development Bank had extended technical support and financial help for it. But, with the project remaining still on paper the funds given by the government could not be spent by the department.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was also signed with ITE Education Service, Singapore, which was known to be a stalwart in the field of skill development. However, the excessive delay in the project has resulted in growing disinterest in the Singapore-based firm.
Notably, both the ministers, Chouhan and Rudy during the foundation laying ceremony of the GSP, had termed it a big achievement for ‘New India’ and ‘Make In India’ and encouraged youths to bank on it. However, today neither the project seems to have any hope nor do the job-searching youths.
Training to begin on new campus at ITI: Joshi
Technical education minister (independent charge) Deepak Joshi said the scheduled deadline for Global Skills Park was August 2018 but the project had been facing excessive delay. Joshi however informed that for the time being the training would begin on a campus to be built at ITI Govindpura from the coming August.