NCS portal to provide online employability training on digital skills and soft skills

The Meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Members of Parliament for the Ministry of Labour and Employment was held in New Delhi on 22nd December 2022 under the chairmanship of Shri Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister for Labour and Employment. Minister of State for Labour and Employment Shri Rameshwar Teli was also present. Members of Parliament of various political parties took part in the meeting. The MPs present were Shri Sunil Kumar Mondal, Shri Sumedhanand Saraswati, Dr. Umesh G. Jadhav, Shri Sunil K. Soni, Shri Sushil Kumar Gupta, Shri Ahmad Ashfaque Karim, Shri Bhagirath Chaudhary, Shri Rajmani Patel, and Shri Vinay D. Tendulkar. The subject of the meeting was the “National Career Service Portal”. Shri Amit Nirmal, Deputy Director General (E) gave a presentation on the subject.

During the meeting, the committee was informed that the National Career Service (NCS) Portal of the Ministry of Labour and Employment was launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 20th July 2015. The NCS portal is not only a job portal, it is a complete career development portal for the job seekers of the country. The portal has evolved by way of various integrations with the Government as well as the private portals, launching of online employability training on digital skills and soft skills apart from career-related assistance like career counseling, vocational guidance, organizing online and offline job fairs, etc. The government has also approved 370 Model Career Centres for providing various career-related services at the district level.

A new module for international jobs has been added to the NCS portal in April 2022. The module facilitates Recruiting Agents registered under the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to post international job opportunities on the NCS portal and jobseekers on the NCS portal can search and apply for these international job opportunities.

As per the budget speech of 2022-23, the interlinking of the NCS portal with e-Shram, the Portal of the Ministry of Labour and Employment; Udyam, the portal of Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and ASEEM, portal of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship portals has been completed.

The integration of the NCS portal with the Udyam portal has enabled the seamless registration of Udyam-registered MSMEs as an employer on the NCS portal. These employers can post their vacancy requirements over NCS. So far more than 3.36 Lakh MSME employers have been registered on the NCS portal. So far, more than 10 lakh e-Shram registrants have registered on the NCS portal and harm workers are getting decent jobs through NCS.

NCS portal is also integrated with 27 States and many private portals like Monster India, Naukari.com, Freshersworld, Merajob, etc. This has led to the enrichment of the NCS vacancy database and connected job seekers with the right jobs. Online employability training is also offered over the NCS portal digital skills and Soft-Skills. The NCS portal also has a knowledge repository of 3600+ job roles for the use of jobseekers, Employment Officers, and Career Counsellors for career guidance. There is a network of around 900 qualified Career Counsellors on the portal for providing quality career counseling/guidance support to the job-seekers, are available.

It was also informed that the portal has evolved over the last 7 years and now it is time to shift to the new latest available technology for more integrations, for giving a global perspective, and for providing better service to its stakeholders.

Members of Parliament praised the initiative of the Government for developing the NCS portal for providing employment and other related services to the youth which is the need of the hour. They also made several suggestions with regard to various activities undertaken under NCS, regarding conducting job fairs, keeping track of placement, reducing the time between shortlisting and final placements, integrating with all Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Kendras, and increasing the awareness of NCS portal.

Shri Bhupender Yadav concluded the meeting by thanking the participants for their pertinent and valuable suggestions.