Women Vishwakarmas outnumber men by 2:1 in Centre’s skilling programme

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Female candidates regularly outperform, and sometimes even outnumber, male candidates in various school leaving board exams in the country. Data published in a section of the media reveal that women have vastly outnumbered men in getting trained under the Pradhan Mantri Vishwakarma Yojana.

The scheme is the latest one that was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September last year with the objective of providing support to craftspeople and artisans who work with bare hands and tools.

Incidentally, more than 95% of the women trained under the scheme have chosen tailoring as a preferred trade.

The scheme has imparted training to 3.5 lakh persons till date. As much as 68.76% of this number, or 2.4 lakh, are women, of whom 2.3 lakh chose tailoring over other skills.

Of the 1.1 lakh males (or 31.3% of the total beneficiaries), 33,104 were imparted training in masonry.

More than 10.40 lakh persons have so far enrolled under the scheme, which represents about 35% of the 30 lakh target. Most of the beneficiaries of the scheme hail from Karnataka (83,067). While the second state on this list is Gujarat (56,221), the third spot belongs to J&K, with 55,856 residents of that state being imparted training. The rest of the states are Andhra Pradesh (44,922), Assam (24,851), Maharashtra (17,557), UP (13,026), Madhya Pradesh (10,692), Rajasthan (7,846) and Chhattisgarh (7,830).

Eight states such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Delhi, were non-starters. Each of these three states had only registrations. “Some of these states and UTs have not even onboarded village panchayats for identification of beneficiaries. Unless that happens, training cannot start,” a bureaucrat told The Economic Times.

The scheme imparts skills to traditional artisans and craftspeople in 18 different trades. The chosen candidates are imparted basic training for five-seven days. On the other hand, advanced training modules extend up to 15 days. At the end of the training module, the beneficiaries are handed out a certificate and ID card. They are also given Rs 500 a day during the course of the training.

The candidates can also get a loan with a ceiling of Rs 2 lakh, for which they are not needed to provide collaterals. They are also given a cash incentive of Rs 15,000 to buy a toolkit and marketing support. They are also encouraged to adopt digital transaction while setting up a business.