World Bank lends $250 million for Sankalp project

NewsBharati    14-Dec-2017
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New Delhi, December 14: The IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) a financing arm of the World Bank will provide India with a loan of $250 million. The amount is being lent as India signed a loan agreement with World Bank under 'Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion' (SANKALP) Project.

India on Wednesday signed a loan agreement with World Bank under Sankalp project, an official statement said. The closing date for the project is 31st March, 2023. The Government of India’s target of training about 400 million people by 2022 cannot be reached with only public financing and will require joint efforts by the government, employers, and individual workers.

It is estimated that, by the end of the program, the skills development capacity of the system would have increased so that at least 8.8 million youth would have received market relevant training, improving their employment opportunities and raising their earnings prospects. The program will benefit approximately 15,000 trainers and 3,000 assessors.

According to a Government skills gap analysis, by the year 2022, there will be an additional requirement of 109 million skilled workers in 24 key sectors of the economy. The program will, therefore, include partnerships with industry and employers for increasing their engagement in skills programs and scale up their delivery.

Financial incentives will also be given to states to encourage them to undertake market-relevant training programs and upgrade their labor market competencies. A special focus of the program will be to provide placement and entrepreneurship opportunities to women and increase their exposure to skills training.

According to Government data only 2.3 percent of the total workforce in India has undergone formal skill training, compared to 68 percent in the United Kingdom, 75 percent in Germany, 52 percent in the United States, 80 percent in Japan, and 96 percent in South Korea.

In addition, the skills forecast study indicates that 298.25 million members of the current farm and nonfarm sector workforce will need to be skilled, re-skilled, and/or up-skilled to increase labor productivity.