Skill Development Ministry launches Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship Programme in collaboration with IIMs

The ministry further said that with the successful launch of MGNF in the first pilot which had 69 fellows working across 69 districts, the Ministry is now expanding MGNF to all remaining districts in the country.

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has launched Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship (MGNF) programme in partnership with nine of the Indian Institutes' of Management (IIM) across India. Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey chaired the event on 'Transforming skilling through strategic partnerships under SANKALP' and rolled out the MGNF and other initiatives.

SANKALP (Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion) is a World Bank loan assisted programme to strengthen the district skill administration and the district skill committees (DSCs). The ministry said that the two-year academic programme comes with an in-built component of on-ground practical experience with the district administration.

"The fellows under MGNF will acquire academic expertise and technical competency in understanding the overall skill ecosystem along with being attached to DSCs and help them manage the skill development planning at district level through the mechanism of formulating the district skill development plans (DSDPs)," it added.

The ministry further said that with the successful launch of MGNF in the first pilot which had 69 fellows working across 69 districts, the Ministry is now expanding MGNF to all remaining districts in the country.

"For retaining the standard of academic excellence and reputation in MGNF, the ministry is seeking academic partnership with only the IIMs and have roped in nine IIMs in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Visakhapatnam, Udaipur, Nagpur, Ranchi and Jammu for the national roll out of MGNF," it said.

Additionally, MSDE has partnered with Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) to conduct capacity building programmes for the district officials from the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Lakshadweep.

The Minister said, "The last six years of Skill India have extensively focused on capacity building and creating infrastructure support for vocational training across the country. Our partnerships going forward will be more focused on strengthening the overall quality of skill training."

"I am confident that these programs will boost our efforts to bring in a transformational change and impact to our Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of building an 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', Pandey said.

On the launch of various programs under SANKALP, Secretary, MSDE, Praveen Kumar said: "All the programmes are aligned with our focus of strengthening quality and availability of resources at ground level to support the DSCs in their skill development and training outreach."

"The various programs in association with leading academic, technical and state departments such as IIMs and IITs will further help in improving the training standards, fortifying capabilities of trainers and also boost more women participation across various skilling programs under PMKVY 3.0," Kumar said.

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