1,565 artisans benefitted by training in 63 Samarth Training Centres;

Ministry of Textiles adopts 65 clusters for overall development of artisans in a time bound manner;
SAMARTH Scheme: Upskilling Handicrafts Artisans
In order to meet the skill gap in the industry, Ministry of Textiles is implementing Samarth Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector. The objective of the scheme is to provide demand driven, placement oriented skilling programmes to supplement the efforts of the industry in creating employment in textile and related sectors, covering the entire value chain of textiles, excluding Spinning and Weaving in organized sector.

The Ministry of Textiles adopted 65 clusters for overall development of artisans in a time bound manner by ensuring self-sustainment of the artisans of these clusters. The need-based interventions are being implemented for benefiting the artisans of these adopted clusters. The upskilling of the handicrafts artisans in these adopted clusters are being done through providing technical and soft skill trainings under SAMARTH scheme to enable sustainable livelihood either by wage or self-employment.

Handicrafts training program in Traditional Hand Embroidery craft at Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

The government has established 65 handicrafts training centers in the adopted clusters for providing technical training in the NSQF aligned Handicrafts courses. The attendance of the artisans is being monitored through Aadhar Authenticated Biometric Attendance System and the wage compensation to successful trained artisans transferred directly to their bank account.

Handicrafts training program in Traditional Hand Embroidery crafts at Khaperkheda, Maharashtra

First batch in each 63 training centers have been completed successfully benefitting 1,565 artisans. The second batch will also complete during the month of August 2021 benefiting 1,421 artisans. Additionally, 65 new handicrafts training centers are being established to scale up the training program so that the maximum number of artisans can be benefitted.

Handicrafts training program in Cane and bamboo crafts at Betul, Madhya Pradesh

Handicrafts training program in Cane and bamboo crafts at DakshinDinajpur, West Bengal

Samarth Scheme is being implemented in association with State Government agencies, sectoral organisations of Ministry of Textiles, Manufacturing Industry, Industry Associations and MSME Associations.

The salient features of the scheme are: –

• Scheme implemented through Textile Industry/ Industry Associations, State Government agencies and Sectoral Organizations of Ministry.
•  Formulated as per broad skilling framework adopted by Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE).
• Comprise entry level skilling (Fresh workers) and Upskilling (existing worker).
• Mandatory placement of trainees- 70% for entry level & 90% for upskilling under organized sector.
• Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) and Web based centralized Management Information System (MIS) for monitoring.
• Call centre for collecting feedback and grievance redressal.
• Physical verification of training centres with geo-tagging /time-stamped photographs.

The proposals were invited from State Government Agencies/ Industry/ Industry Associations for undertaking training programmes under the Samarth Scheme. After evaluation of these proposals, the Ministry of Textiles has partnered with 13 State Government Agencies, 90 Textile Manufacturers, 11 Industry Associations and 4 Sectoral Organizations of Ministry of Textiles for training of 3.3 lakh beneficiaries in textile sector, after physical verification of training centres. Government released funds  ofRs. 72.06 crore  in2019-20 and Rs. 90.70crore in 2020-21 to Implementing Partners (IPs) under Samarth  scheme.