Introduction

Tribal Development Department Govt. of Maharashtra has been conducting skill and entrepreneurship development programs for tribal youth to generate income earning opportunities in the state of Maharashtra. These activities were conducted by all line offices situated across Maharashtra as Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) offices under the control of Additional Tribal Commissioners in all such 29 ITDP and 4 ATC offices were involved in the implementation of the scheme.

First skill development policy was announced by the GoI in 2008 to leverage the demographic dividend, of having one of the youngest workforces in the world. There have been a lot of changes taking place in the field of entrepreneurship and skill development over the last decade. Standardization, certification, affiliations and mandatory placement have been introduced as part of ensuring periodic outcomes and linking the expenditure of public funds to specific tangible results. The Entrepreneurship and Skill Development Policy (ESDP-2015) also envisages the spread of entrepreneurial culture and skilling interventions across social segments covering all sectors through various programs.

Background

TDD GoM has decided to implement the ESDP scheme centrally, with the accountability and responsibility being shouldered by Tribal Research and Training Institute, Pune. This institute is the capacity building arm of the department for in-service employees and also for enabling tribal youth to groom themselves for better service prospects.

This decision has been taken in view of the requirement of standardization in the implementation of the ESDP scheme and establishing a robust institutional network for executing multiple projects which will address issues pertaining to tribal development. This attempt also aims at integrating livelihood generation from all aspects of tribal life.

The mandate of TRTI Pune is primarily research and training in tribal life, that will help preserve tribal culture, lifestyle, customs and traditions etc.

Need:

Tribal Development Dept., Govt. of Maharashtra is striving to address the challenges involved in basic issues and necessities of human life like nutrition, clean drinking water, non-conventional energy, health services etc. Along with this, through TRTI, it is also helping tribal youth groom themselves for Government services and professional courses.

It has been observed that tribal youth hold the government services in very high regard and spend a lot of years trying to get though these competitive examinations. In the bargain, they lose out on a lot of time and upon meeting with failure, have no other source of earning left to explore. This is where the Skill development and Entrepreneurship scheme steps in and helps them get training to increase chances of employability.

Present Scenario and limitations:

There has been standardization initiated by Govt. of India with the help of national level institutions under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Ministry of Labour and Employment. The uniformity in execution, assessments, certification with sector specific councils can seldom assist the tribal population in income generation through standardized industry specific skilling. The needs of tribal population staying in interior tribal area and earning livelihood based on forest resources are quite different from general unemployed youth. While the latter can be equipped directly with hard skills competencies through formal training, former require altogether different strategy that may have to deal with life style, culture, social taboos, superstition etc. some of these are borne out of resource and infrastructural constraints in tribal pockets. Much of the soft skills competencies in the beginning are needed to be developed to optimize outcome from resource allocation in domain hard skills, entrepreneurial interventions etc. Run of the mill projects/brick and mortar initiatives in regular may not yield the desired results from the scheme under reference. Hence the innovative projects need to be pursued which will not focus only income generation but may act as preparatory steps for taking up the challenge of earning income through skilling and entrepreneurship interventions.

The scope of the division therefore shall not be restricted only to income generation through skilling and entrepreneurship but will encompass all areas relevant to tribal life mentioned in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) treaty of UN members accepted by Govt. of India which are mentioned below. These SDGs have been accepted by UN members in 2016 and shall remain in force till 2030.

1. Poverty eradication
2. Universalization of primary education
3. Infant mortality
4. Clean drinking water
5. Malnutrition and hunger fighting
6. Primary health services leading to improvement in overall Human Development Index (HDI)
7. Use of non- conventional energy sources
8. Issues pertaining to climate change

These are some of the indicative 8 SDGs out of 17 accepted by UN nations, based on these and in relevance to tribal development, Commissioner TRTI shall take the decision to sanction grants for financing particular projects from the innovative category.

The circular of TDD GoM, deals with all major initiatives and processes, eligibility of prospective training providers but the same needs to be aligned with the actual requirement in the field, responses from stakeholders who have participated in on-line proposal submission drive conducted by TDD GoM.

As TRTI Pune is implementing the scheme for the first time, the experiences from the field offices, meetings and sharing of information by different stakeholders relevant to Tribal Development will be incorporated as project progresses forward.