Nabard to take up short term skill development programmes for reverse migrant workers

© Provided by The Financial Express
Mandal said Nabard has already provided Rs 90,000 crore worth of long-term refinance to the banks for meeting credit requirement of the agriculture and allied sectors.

National Bank for Agriculture And Rural Development (Nabard) will soon start a short-term skill development programme for reverse migrants that will help them to get re-employed at the earliest. The board has initially sanctioned programmes for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand and seeks to work with the National Skill Development Corporation accredited national skill development centres.

CU Bhaskar, Nabard’s chief general manager in Mumbai told Financial Express the programme would be implemented on a large scale and majority of the funding would be done by Nabard. “But the entire process would be complicated since it would involve identifying efficient skill development centres and the real needy, who would require training to get back to work. The details of the programme are yet to be worked out,” Bhaskar said.

Subrata Mandal, Nabard’s chief general manager in Kolkata said, they will roll out this programme through the lead bank scheme, that will bring into its folds Rural Self Employment Training Institutes to carry out the short term skill development programmes. “An individual bank that functions as lead bank for a district and has a wide network of branches with adequate financial and manpower resources will be entrusted to spearhead the programme, although the entire funding would be done by Nabard,” Mandal said.

Nabard has also tied up with various CSR initiatives like that of the Tata Trust, Ambuja Cement, Dalmia Cement, ACC Cement and others who will participate in the skill development initiative and do a part-funding of the scheme.

Rameswar Teli, union minister of state for food processing industries, at a Bharat Chamber of Commerce webinar said the government has ensured continuous fund flows to the agriculture, food processing and agri infrastructure sector, which would help re-employ the reverse migrants. The Rs 1 lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund Scheme, the Rs 15,000 crore Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Fund Scheme, the Rs 60,00 crore Pradhan Mantri Kishan Sampad Yojana and other rural sector schemes under the package of Atmanirbhar Bharat would go a long way in re-employing the migrant labourers and creating new employment as well.

Mandal said Nabard has already provided Rs 90,000 crore worth of long-term refinance to the banks for meeting credit requirement of the agriculture and allied sectors. Nabard has been providing special liquidity facilities to regional rural banks, cooperative banks and NBFCs during the pandemic period to ensure unhindered credit flow to farmers, farm producers organisation and primary agriculture credit societies (PACs).

Santosh Kumar Gangwar, minister of state for labour and employment told the parliament on Monday that according to the government estimates 1 crore 4 lakh 66 thousand reverse migrants have gone back to their home states of which Uttar Pradesh has the highest number, more than 32.49 lakh. Bihar has more than 15 lakh migrants and Jharkhand 5.30 lakh migrants.