160 to take part in state level skill contest

PATNA: At least 160 participants from the state will take part in the IndiaSkills Competition-Bihar being organized by the Bihar Skill Development Mission (BSDM) in partnership with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) from April 20 to April 22. The BSDM functions under the state labour resources department.
Labour resources minister Vijay Kumar Sinha and principal secretary Dipak Kumar Singh briefed the participants about the upcoming competition during a prep talk organized at the Niyojan Bhawan in the city on Monday.

“While the state level winner and runner-up will receive a cash prize of Rs 21,000 and Rs 11,000, respectively, others will get Rs 8,000. Contestants from Bihar, who qualify at the regional and national levels, will be awarded Rs 51,000 and Rs 1 lakh, respectively,” Sinha said.

Different governments will conduct district and local competitions to select the best skilled person from their respective states. The state champions will be called for regional competitions and the winners will make it to the IndiaSkills Competition. The top scorers will eventually represent the country at the WorldSkills Competition to be held in Kazan in 2019.

Altogether 27 skills, including traditional ones like Madhubani painting, Tikuli art, pottery, carpentry and bricklaying as well as new ones like milling, welding, plastic engineering, fashion technology, culinary skills and mobile robotics, will be exhibited at the state level competition.

Samastipur’s Rajesh Sharma and Bhojpur’s Rahul Kumar and Kishan Kumar — all carpenters by profession — have passed the initial screening test and are being trained at Bakhtiyarpur College of Engineering for the state level competition.

“This is a big opportunity for us. We will try our best to qualify for the world level contest,” they told this reporter.

Mohit Dudeja and Shailendra Kumar, contestants who took part in the WorldSkills Competition-2017 at Abu Dhabi, have been invited to prepare the 160 contestants from Bihar for the next level.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, among other dignitaries, will attend the inauguration ceremony of the competition on April 20. Governor Satya Pal Malik will present awards to the winners on April 22.