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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Maneka glare on training -Ananya Sengupta

Maneka glare on training -Ananya Sengupta

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published Published on Mar 16, 2015   modified Modified on Mar 16, 2015
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: Maneka Gandhi has asked non-profit organisations to move beyond stereotypical skills like stitching and tailoring to "specific vocations" while applying for funds to train women and warned of a crackdown if the course didn't lead to employment.

Sources in Maneka's women and child development ministry said the advisory, sent to all NGOs working with the department, had basically two objectives: weed out fraudulent applicants and impart skills with long-term "market value".

Officials said Maneka plans to shift the focus of the ministry's biggest support and training scheme to jobs like carpentry, plumbing, electrical works and even construction and IT.

The advisory makes it clear what Maneka wants. Most of the applications that have come in under the support to training and employment programme (STEP) were for stitching and tailoring, she said. "It is better to ask for specific vocations that are local to the area than to ask for stitching and tailoring."

She warned that at the end of the course, if the women didn't get jobs, the NGOs would have to "refund all the money and be blacklisted across the government".

Maneka said her officials had found that many of the trainers didn't even have adequate qualifications. "In the stitching and tailoring courses, none of the trainers have degrees or diplomas in the same. How will they teach? If the organisation does not have trainers, space, equipment... do not apply."

The government had set aside Rs 18 crore for the scheme under the budget for 2014-2015. Maneka said a scrutiny had revealed that some organisations that claimed to have "done courses in stitching and tailoring" earlier had applied for funds saying they don't have equipment. "How is that possible?" she said.

"NGOs that have given training to 200 women before in less than Rs 2 lakh are now asking for Rs 50 lakh+ to do the same," she wrote, asking the NGOs to give proof of expenditure.

The minister said "preference" would be given to NGOs that train women to create indigenous crafts that are saleable, horticulture products that are marketable and food items that can be "made easily and sold locally".

Under the current scheme, NGOs are sanctioned money for projects that include breeding poultry, food processing, handloom, horticulture, handicraft and fishery. However, most NGOs apply to train women in stitching and tailoring.

Ministry officials say because of inadequate monitoring, there is no way of knowing how many of these women move on to start their own ventures.

Maneka's advisory attempts to address this problem and makes it clear who are eligible to apply in the ministry's bid to make women part of a skilled workforce rather than passive participants in projects.

"Those NGOs that are in the habit of getting government money for one-day awareness camps, whether in drugs, nationalism, festivals, health awareness, AIDs, environment, etc., will not be entertained.... We have a committee of people who are checking each application and are quick to spot fakes. Please apply only if you are a true NGO and... want to take part in your country's upliftment," she said.

Maneka has also made it mandatory for NGOs to explain how they would market products the women create or help them start out on their own.

No NGO attached to the ministry for the STEP project was ready to comment on the advisory.


The Telegraph, 16 March, 2015, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150316/jsp/nation/story_8988.jsp#.VQaSPuFr9U8


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