The final meeting of the Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on Skill Development was held at NITI Aayog in New Delhi today. The meeting was presided by the Convenor of the Subgroup and the Chief Minister of Punjab, Shri Parkash Singh Badal. The Chief Ministers of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya Tripura and Goa attended the meeting. The Minister for Employment, Technical Education & Training from Odisha was also present at the meeting. The rest of the member States namely Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry were represented by their senior officer. Member of NITI Aayog Dr.V.K.Saraswat and other senior officials were also present at the meeting. The CEO of NITI AAYOG Smt. Sindhushree Khullar, presented the recommendations of the Draft Report before the Members for their views.

 The deliberations focused on empowering and strengthening the State Skill Development Missions to address the challenge of skill development at the State level in a decentralized manner so as to improve the outreach of skill development. The emphasis was also laid on increasing participation by women and other socio economic groups. It was suggested that appropriate credit and market linkages be provided for entrepreneurial development which can act as force multiplier for employment generation. The Sub-Group focused on need for overcoming the shortage of trainers by involving the industry and national level institutions such as IIT, IIM and universities. It was decided that after incorporating the additional views shared by the member States today the final Report would be submitted to the PM within a fortnight.

 The NITI Aayog Sub-Group on Skill Development was constituted as per the decision taken in the first meeting of the Governing Council of the NITI Aayog chaired by the Prime Minister on 8th February, 2015. The Sub-Group consists of Chief Ministers of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Odisha, Punjab, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Tripura.

Decentralized skill development: empower State Skill Development Missions to boost outreach, inclusion and industry-linked trainer capacity. The Sub-Group recommended strengthening State Skill Development Missions to decentralize training and improve outreach, prioritise participation by women and disadvantaged groups, provide credit and market linkages to promote entrepreneurial development, and address trainer shortages by engaging industry and national institutions; the final Report will be submitted to the Prime Minister within a fortnight.