Bhubaneshwar: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik dedicated Odisha Skill Development Authority (OSDA) to the state. The authority will bring convergence among skill development programmes conducted by different departments of the state government.
Naveen said the OSDA has adopted a bold and powerful mission statement ‘Skilled in Odisha will be globally recognized’. It will implement a set of 20 goals over the next 18 months under different categories. “All of them come together to form the overarching vision- ‘8 lakh skilled in 3 years’,” he added. He said the state government will revamp the existing ITIs. It will partner with Asian Development Bank (ADB) to set up eight super-state-of-the-art Advanced Skill Training Institutes (ASTIs) and work with short-term skill partners to achieve the goal, he further added.
“With a massive outlay of Rs 1000 crore with loan assistance from ADB, the eight ASTIs will come up in different parts of the state. These institutes will be modeled around the best in the world in terms of physical and intellectual infrastructure to impart training to our youths,” said Naveen and added that existing ITIs in the state will be paired with the ASTIs to provide high quality technical training to youths. He said the state has trained 3.3 lakh youths in last two years to improve their employ-ability and self-employment skills. “We need to train eight lakh more in three years. For the vast majority of our skilled youth, they will have to seek employment in a global environment,” he added.
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