The Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS) was introduced by the Government of India in year 1950 to ensure a steady flow of skilled workers in different trades for the domestic industry, to raise quantitatively and qualitatively the industrial production by systematic training, to reduce unemployment among the educated youth by providing them employable skills, to cultivate and nurture a technical and industrial attitude in the minds of younger generation. The Scheme is the most important in the field of Vocational Training, has been shaping craftsmen to meet the existing as well as future manpower need, through the vast network of ITIs spread over various States / Union Territories in the country. The day-to-day administration of ITIs under the Craftsmen Training Scheme was transferred to the State Governments/ Union Territory administrations with effect from the year 1956. From 1st April 1969, the financial control of the Industrial Training Institutes in the States as well as in the Union Territories was transferred to the respective State Governments / Union Territory. The financial assistance was granted to them in the form of bulk grant in consultation with the erstwhile Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance.

Vocational Training is a concurrent subject of both Central and State Governments. The development of training schemes at National level, the evolution of policy, laying of training standard, norms, conducting of examinations, certification, etc. are the responsibilities of the central government, whereas, day to day administration including an admission in ITIs rests with the respective State Governments / UTs.

Presently, training courses under the Craftsmen Training Scheme are being offered through a network of 14643 ITIs (Govt. 3331 + Private 11312) located all over the country with total trainees enrolled 26.58 lakhs (in the trades of 1 year and 2 year durations) on NCVTMIS portal with an objective to provide skilled workforce to the industry in 169 NSQF compliant trades.

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FLEXI MOU

FLEXIBLE MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING OR FLEXI-MOU SCHEME

The scheme is designed to cater to the needs of both industry as well as trainees. The scheme allows industries to train candidates as per their skill set requirements and provides trainees with an industry environment aligned with the market demand and latest technology to undergo training.

An Employer Skiller Model:

The scheme envisages prospective employer (industry) with established infrastructure, robust training facilities, as well as trained faculty, to conduct in-house skilling of prospective employee to add industry ready trainees to its workforce.

Flexibility of Course:

Industry to create tailored skilling programmes with customized courses, having market relevant content that meets the industry requirements. Curriculum of courses developed by ITP should be designed with more weightage towards industrial training. Courses must have high employment potential.

For IT/ITES and similar sectors, courses developed may be purely online.

Industrial Training Partner (ITP):

The participating entities need to enter into agreement or MoU with DGT, as an Industrial Training Partner (ITP). ITP can be Industry/Organization, Industry Clusters/ Associations, Skill Universities.

MoU Duration:

MoU will be signed for a period of 3 years, and may be extended in slots of 3 years if successful.

Course Duration:

Duration of training including classroom training and industry training components shall be minimum 6 months, and maximum 24 months (2 years).

Trainees’ Selection & Admission:

The ITP have the flexibility of selecting the trainees as per their selection criteria over and above the prescribed criteria. Admission time and training cycle has been kept flexible.

The ITP signing Flexi-MoU must train minimum of 100 trainees per annum with a cap of 1000 trainees per annum.

TRAINING, ASSESSMENT, CERTIFICATION AND PLACEMENT

Conducting training of selected candidates is the sole responsibility of ITP. Assessment will be jointly done by ITP and DGT. Industry gets to conduct practical and formative assessments and evaluation. ITP must ensure placement of at-least 50% of the total successful trainees trained.

Grievance Redressal:

ITP should create an internal committee for managing trainee grievances, similar to the provisions made for regular employees ITP.

Benefits for Trainees

Training in industry relevant courses with high employment potential. Interactions with experienced industry experts/professionals. Exposure to industry shop-floor environment & latest equipment. Increased employment avenues in multiple industries in that sector. Industry ready, exposure to best practices, latest machines, tools, and equipments.

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DUAL SYSTEM OF TRAINING

OBJECTIVE

Objective of DST scheme is to enable industries and establishments to partner with Government and Private ITIs for conducting training programmes under high employability courses so as to fulfil their skilled manpower requirements. The DST is an amalgamation of theoretical training imparted through ITIs and practical training imparted through the Industry. DST helps enable Industry linkages and provide hands on experience to students on industries latest/ updated technologies.

Under the DST scheme, the courses are conducted to meet the skilled workforce requirements of Industry so that after completion of training, the trainee who are awarded National Trade Certificate (NTC) under the scheme have an edge over regular ITI pass outs in terms of employability and employment opportunities in Industry.With the vision of strengthening Industry linkages and acquainting students in ITIs with latest technologies used in the Industry, DGT encourages ITIs to participate in the DST program so that these ITI trainees are Industry ready.

ELIGIBILITY OF ITIS

All affiliated ITIs (Government and Private) can conduct training under DST in their relevant affiliated trade(s)

COURSES AND CURRICULUM FOR DST

The Dual System of Training has been expanded to all the trades including service sector trades, and trades in new and emerging sectors. All these courses will be NSQF aligned.

DURATION OF TRAINING

1. Duration of industrial training’ as indicated in table below :

2. The Industry / ITI has flexibility in deciding duration of ITI and Industry training blocks over the entire training period within this range.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR INDUSTRIES

1. In order to bring more industries under the ambit of DST, the condition of minimum 200 employees being employed by participating Industry has been revised for both engineering and non-engineering trades. These guidelines are now further modified as below:
2.  For an Industry in engineering trades, minimum employees criteria will be 40 (including contractual employees) whereas for non-engineering trades, the Industry Partner should have minimum 6 employees.
3.  Turnover should be minimum INR 10 lakh per year for the last two years in case of non-Engineering Industry, and minimum turnover should be INR 1 crore per year for the last 3 years for Industry in engineering trades.

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BACKGROUND

Development of human resource is crucial for the industrial development of any nation. Up-gradation of skills is an important component of Human Resource Development. Training imparted in institutions alone is not sufficient for acquisition of skills and needs to be supplemented by training at the workplace. The Apprentices Act, 1961 was enacted with the prime objective to utilize fully the facilities available in industry for imparting practical training with a view to meeting the requirements of skilled manpower for industry. Initially, the Act covered the apprenticeship training for the trade Apprentices and subsequently amended in 1973, 1986 and 2014 to bring the Graduates, Technician, Technician (Vocational) and Optional Trade Apprentices respectively under its purview.

OBJECTIVES

Apprentices Act, 1961 was enacted with the following objectives :--

• To regulate the programme of training of apprentices in the industry so as to conform to the prescribed syllabi, period of training etc.as laid down by the Central Apprenticeship Council; and
• To utilise the facilities available in industry for imparting practical training with a view to meeting the requirements of skilled manpower for industry.

MONITORING OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ACT

• Directorate General of Training under Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship monitors the implementation of the Apprentices Act in respect of Trade Apprentices in the Central Government Undertakings & Departments and establishments operating business 4 or more states through six Regional Directorates of Apprenticeship Training (RDAT) located at Chennai, Faridabad, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Kolkata, & Mumbai.
• State Apprenticeship Advisers are responsible for implementation of the Act in respect of Trade Apprentices in State Government Undertakings/ Departments and Private Establishments.
• Department of Education in the Ministry of Human Resource Development is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Act in respect of Graduate, Technician & Technician (Vocational) Apprentices. This monitoring is done through four Boards of Apprenticeship Training located at Chennai, Kanpur, Kolkata and Mumbai.

CENTRAL APPRENTICESHIP COUNCIL

• It is an apex statutory body.It is tripartite by constituion with members from Government both Central and States/UTs, Employers etc.
• It advises the Government on laying down of policies and prescribing norms & standards in respect of Apprenticeship Training.

Fields of apprenticeship training

Apprenticeship training can be provided to apprentices both in designated and optional trades.

Designated trade means any trade or occupation as notified by the Government.

Optional trade means any trade or occupation decided by an employer.

1. Designated trade
2. Optional trade

Categories of apprentices

There are five categories of apprentices:

1. Trade apprentices
2. Graduate apprentices
3. Technician apprentices
4. Technician (Vocational) apprentices
5. Optional trade apprentices

ADVANCED (VOCATIONAL) DIPLOMA

Directorate General of Training (DGT) under Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship offers a range of Vocational Training courses catering to the need of different sectors of economy/Labour market. The Vocational Training Programmes are delivered under aegis of Directorate General of Training (DGT). Craftsman Training Scheme (CTS) and Apprenticeship Training Scheme (ATS) are two pioneer programmes of DGT for propagating vocational training. Recently DGT has started Technical Diplomas for different streams and primarily implemented at DGT field institutes such as ATIs, FTIs and AHI and planned to expand to State Directorates in future.

The course is for two years duration. In the first year there are five core modules each module is credit base and employable. Each module is of 320 hours and is very much independent. In second year the trainee will be taking two elective modules out of three electives each of 320 hours and will be doing on the job training in Industry for 800 hours. In addition the trainees will pick up employability skills for 160 hours. After passing out the training programme, the trainee will be awarded Technical Diploma by DGT which has worldwide recognition.

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CRAFT INSTRUCTOR TRAINING SCHEME (CITS)

Training of Craft Instructors is the mandated responsibility of DGT and It has been operational since the inception of the Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS). Comprehensive training both in skills and training methodology is imparted to the instructor trainees to make them conversant with techniques of transferring hands-on skills, to train skilled manpower for the industry.

During admissions in academic session 2021, it was assessed that about 15,000 ITIs with seating capacity of more than 35 lakhs and the skill ecosystem have more than 95,000 instructor positions. But, only about 15% of these are currently trained under CITS. NCVT has mandated that all trainers in ITIs need to be CITS trained. 
During the academic year 2024-25, a total of 10,732 candidates have taken admission against a total seating capacity of 17,475 (61.41% seats filled) in NSTIs and IToTs.

Under the Craft Instructor Training Scheme programme, the eligible candidates are those who possess NTC/ NAC/Diploma/Degree qualifications. Training in a total of 55 trades (36 Engineering trades and 19 non-engineering trades) is being offered.

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ENHANCING SKILL DEVELOPMENT INFRASTRUCTURE IN NORTH EASTERN STATES(ESDI)

The scheme envisages to enhance the existing infrastructure of skill development in North Eastern States. The scheme is aimed for:

1. Upgradation of 22 ITIs by introducing three new trades per ITI with 100% Central funding;
2. Supplementing infrastructure deficiencies in 28 ITIs by constructing new hostel, boundary wall and supplementing old and obsolete tools and equipment with 100% Central funding; and
3. Establishment of 34 new ITIs in 8 North Eastern States with 90% Central and 10% State funding.
4. SPMU :-Under this component, there is a provision for funding to the state and central project monitoring unit with 100% central funding.
5. Financial Aid to Mamit ITI, Mizoram.

The duration of the scheme is upto 31st March, 2024. So for Rs. 307.63 crore (Rs. 284.18 Crore as Central Share and Rs. 23.44 Crore as State Share) out of total allocation of Rs. 421.64 crore (including Rs. 32.53 Crore as State Share) has been released to eight States of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland,Mizoram,Manipur,Tripura & Sikkim.

The form related to ESDI scheme for collection of data pertaining to scheme has been designed by DGT and placed on Social Cops. All the Principal of respective ITIs are requested to download the Collect App in their Android mobile from Google Playstore and fill up the entire form at the earliest.

For any assistance, kindly contact Shri D.P. Singh, Director (Schemes)

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