R.K. Charitable Trust deemed vocational training provider

Under the Skill Development Initiative Scheme of the Centre

R.K. Charitable Trust, Thuvakkudi, has been granted the status of vocational training provider (VTP), under the Central Government’s Skill Development Initiative Scheme (SDIS).

The Directorate General of Employment and Training has accorded its approval to the Trust to conduct vocational training in Fabrication Engineering and Painting. The training programme will start soon, according to its Managing Trustee N. Kanagasabapathy.

The recognition qualifies R.K. Trust to train school dropouts and workers in informal sector in close association with industries, microenterprises in informal sector, State government, experts, and academia. The SDIS was put to operation by the Central government in 2007 with the objective of imparting vocational training and testing competencies of one million persons over the subsequent five years, and an equal number of persons per year thereafter.

In the initial years, only government Industrial Training Institutes and private Industrial Training Centres were permitted to impart the training. In recent years, the Central government has been empanelling other private VTPs. A partner institution of the State government’s Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), the trust fulfils the criteria of training 1,000 persons under a Central government scheme. The VTPs are expected to provide post-training support to the trainees in getting employment, maintain database, and record outcome of their training.

Over the last few years, the trust has been conducting several training programmes sponsored by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, taking the support of the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (NIMISME).

At a function on Saturday, 50 trainees, including 25 SC candidates, received certificates on completion of a 12-day Entrepreneurship Development Programme at the R.K. Trust. The topics covered during the training programme included project evaluation and submission of project reports, S.P. Mohan, Chief Co-ordinator of R.K. Charitable Trust, said.

S. Punniyamurthy, secretary, Tiruchi District Tiny and Small Scale Industries’ Association, advised the prospective entrepreneurs to concentrate on three factors: quality, price, and delivery, to succeed. C. Ramasamy Desai, Project Manager, Institute for Entrepreneurship and Career Development, Bharathidasan University, also addressed the trainees, and assured handholding service to entrepreneurs.