Facilitating the honourable prime Minister’s vision for a ‘skilled India’ workforce, the COAI is launching a massive outreach programme to mobilize the underprivileged youth in the remotest parts of the country for skill training. The programme that aims to reach out to a massive 440 crore young population will help implement the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), a flagship outcome-based skill development scheme under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, which plans to skill over 24 lakh youth across the country by the end of the year.
The announcement of the outreach programme by the telecom operators of COAI membership comes close on the heels of the national launch of the PMKVY scheme by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi. Skills Development is a key priority for India under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi. This is not only essential for economic development, but it is also important to provide wings to the aspiration of the country’s youth for good-quality, better-paying jobs and self-employment opportunities. India has an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a pool for skilled human resources to the world, particularly the ageing developed economies, if it is able to skill its young population.
One of the biggest hurdles facing skills training in India is reaching out to the youth in the remote areas of the country. COAI Core Members’ outreach programme, aims to address this challenge. Initially, a pilot project in Bihar covered a subscriber base of over 2.2 crore people and the same is now being rolled out nationwide by the COAI core members to cover nearly 440 crore subscribers with the launch of the PMKVY scheme.
To begin with, the telecom operators would send out SMSs and voice-based awareness messages to the targeted subscriber base, sharing a specific toll-free number (1800 1026000) on which interested recipients give a missed call. Once a missed call is received, an SMS would be sent out in regional languages, informing the candidates that he or she would be receiving a call shortly. An interactive Voice Response (IVR) message that would ask for their Location, Employment Status, Age, Gender and job preference would be pushed to the candidate to enable their inputs on their profile. The data would be captured and reports shared in a pre-defined format for further targeting by training partners of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), so that each interested candidate can be mapped to the closest training centre. Following this, an invitation message with date, time and address of the nearest centre would be shared with candidates, followed by a reminder call and text message directing them to the nearest centre to enrol with the programme.