Cachar bags 2nd position among 700 districts across the country for exemplary planning in skill development 

June 9: It’s another feather in the cap for Cachar district. The 2nd edition of ‘Awards for Excellence in District Skill Development Planning’ (DSDP) were organised today at Dr. Ambedkar International Centre in New Delhi where top 30 districts were awarded for their innovative best practices in skill development in the region. Rajkot in Gujarat, Cachar in Assam and Satara in Maharashtra respectively were ranked top three among all participating districts.

Out of 700 districts across the country, 467 districts participated in District Skill Development Planning (DSDP) Awards. Of them,  30 districts were awarded for exemplary planning in skill development at the 2nd edition of District Skill Development Planning (DSDP) Awards.

District Collectors, District Magistrates and other representatives from across 30 States attended the award ceremony and shared their ideas & experiences and presented the skill development work done at the grass root level in their districts. Thirty districts were selected, and awards were given under the following three categories:

• Category I: 8 Awards for Excellence in District Skill Development Planning
• Category II: 13 Certificate for Excellence in District Skill Development Planning
• Category III: 9 Letter of Appreciation for District Skill Development Planning

Among winning districts, the Rajkot DSC has implemented several projects to augment skill development in the district. With a strong focus on skilling Persons with Disability (PwD), the district has supported people with learning disabilities and dyslexia.

It needs mention here that Rajkot, Cachar and Satara ranked top 3 districts respectively. Short shelf life & high transportation cost were posing a supply chain challenge to pineapple farmers of Assam’s Cachar district, forcing them to dispose of large quantities of the fruit and sell them at sub-par market prices. By setting up a processing unit for manufacturing pineapple products locally, the Cachar DSC came up with a quick solution to address the problem. This gave farmers the flex and the bargaining capacity to sell pineapples at a handsome profit once more. Deputy Commissioner of Cachar district, Keerthi Jalli received the award on Thursday at Dr. Ambedkar International Centre in New Delhi. 

At Satara in Maharashtra, the DSC implemented various programmes to strengthen skilling, and training a workforce for disaster management. The district has also owned the responsibility of empowering women affected during COVID with skill training.

Later in an interactive session, the officials met the Union Minister of Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Dharmendra Pradhan, and Minister of State (MoS) for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, and Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar and shared best practices and work done in their region.

Dharmendra Pradhan asked the District Collectors, District Magistrates and other officials to carry out demand-mapping of the skilled workforce and drive awareness about skill development initiatives at the local level. He said that skilling is a lifelong process and the DCs should further the entire continuum of skill development and work towards strengthening the skill development ecosystem through innovative planning at the district level. Congratulating all participants, Dharmendra Pradhan said all planning for skill development should have a link to the local economy, and that the way to an Aatmanirbhar Bharat is through the building of Atmanirbhar districts.

DSDP Awards were instituted under the Skill Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP) Scheme by MSDE in June 2018 to promote decentralised planning, acknowledge and reward the extraordinary and innovative work done by districts in the field of skill development. The first DSDP Awards were held in 2018-19, with 228 districts from 19 states participating in the initiative. Districts with plans of fostering innovation and enabling local livelihoods with skill development initiatives were shortlisted for the awards.

MSDE envisages these awards will encourage all District Skill Committees (DSCs) and will promote better understanding around DSDP by using capabilities for implementing targeted projects at the district level. The project aims to maximise the impact of SANKALP’s primary initiative, which is to strengthen institutional mechanisms for skill development at the state and district levels. IIT Delhi and IIT Kharagpur were chosen as evaluation partners to assess the award entries.

Skill Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (“SANKALP”) is a programme under Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship with loan assistance from the World Bank. It aims to improve short-term skill training qualitatively and quantitatively through strengthening institutions, bringing in better market connectivity and inclusion of marginalised sections of the society.