India: NITI Aayog suggests raising monthly training stipend to INR5,000

• NITI Aayog has suggested more than threefold increase in the cap on reimbursement of the cost of training candidates under a revamped version of the government’s National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS), a measure which will bring down the liability of companies and give a fillip to the programme which has not found many takers so far.
• The Aayog has proposed that the government reimburse the companies up to INR5,000 or 50% of the cost per candidate per month as stipend for apprenticeship training under NAPS instead of a maximum of INR1,500 or 25%, whichever is higher, at present, a senior government official told ET.
• Officials in the skill development and entrepreneurship ministry confirmed that a proposal in this regard has been sent to the finance ministry for approval.
• The BJP-led NDA government had launched NAPS in 2016 to promote apprenticeship training in the country and to incentivise employers who wished to engage apprentices. The programme aims to increase the engagement of apprentices to 5 million by 2020 from just around 230,000 now.
• The government allocated INR100bn to bear the cost of reimbursements, but in the absence of active participation from industry players, not much of the amount has been utilised.

External Link: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/niti-aayog-suggests-raising-monthly-training-stipend-to-rs-5000/articleshow/68473822.cms