Textiles Minister, Smriti Irani Discussed Samarth Scheme for Improvising the Textile Sector

A meeting of stakeholders on Samarth – Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector under the Skill India Mission was held in New Delhi today to familiarize the stakeholders about the scheme and its guidelines. The meeting was chaired by Union Minister of Textiles, Mrs. Smriti Zubin Irani. The broad objective of the new scheme is to skill the youth for gainful and sustainable employment in the textile sector covering the entire value chain of textiles, excluding spinning and weaving.

Minister of State for Textiles, Mr. Ajay Tamta and Secretary, Textiles, Mr. Anant Kumar Singh also addressed the stakeholders. The concerns of the stakeholders and challenges faced by them during implementation of the previous scheme were discussed in the meeting. Feedback from the concerned stakeholders on how the scheme can contribute and benefit the textile industry and boost skill development in the respective sector was also discussed.

The scheme, approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 20^th of December last year, is intended to provide demand driven, placement oriented National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) compliant skilling programmes to incentivize and supplement the efforts of the industry in creating jobs in the textiles sectors. The scheme targets to train 10 lakh persons (9 lakh in organised and 1 lakh in traditional sector) over a period of 3 years (2017-20), with an outlay of Rs. 1300 crore. The guidelines of the scheme were released on 23^rd of April 2018.

The meeting was attended by the senior officials of the Textiles Ministry, institutions and organizations under it, representatives of textile industry, State Governments, training institutions among others.