New Delhi: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India on Wednesday signed a USD 80 million loan to help modernise technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions and improve the skills ecosystem in the state of Himachal Pradesh.
Sameer Kumar Khare, Joint Secretary (Multilateral Institutions), Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, signed the loan agreement for the government of India, and Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director of ADB's India Resident Mission, signed on behalf of the ADB.
The project agreement was signed by Dr Basu Sood, Adviser (Planning), Planning Department on behalf of the government of Himachal Pradesh.
Speaking on the occasion, Sameer Kumar Khare said that the project will support the skill initiatives of the Government of Himachal Pradesh and help the state step-up the reform and scale-up its skill development efforts.
He further said that it will fund short-term and long-term training programs in growth areas including automobiles, electronics, pharmaceutical, tourism and hospitality and banking and financial services, healthcare to help enhance the skills set of the youth and increase their employability.
Yokoyama said that after achieving impressive enrollment rates for higher education, the state of Himachal Pradesh faces 'second-generation' challenge of preparing its youth for the challenging labour market.
He said that the project will help in equipping the youth with market-relevant technical and vocational skills.
The state will need more than 5,00,000 skilled workers by 2022 across various trades.
The project will help seize this opportunity by providing support in developing relevant and good quality TVET programs thereby improving employment prospects of nearly 65,000 youths by 2022.
Further, the project will establish a polytechnic for women, six city livelihood centers, and seven rural livelihood centers, and upgrade 11 employment exchanges into model career centres.
These efforts will result in improved TVET awareness among youth, modernising training equipment, implementing a training information system, forging partnerships with private sector, and creating better access to quality market-relevant TVET and livelihood development opportunities for youth in Himachal Pradesh.
