Govt to expedite skilling of youth: Pradhan

New Delhi : The government will expedite its initiative to skill youth in different trades and develop entrepreneur skills as it looks to create employment avenues for one million youth who join the job market every year.

Dharmendra Pradhan, who took over as the new Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said his priority would be to create an eco-system of jobs. “Every year one million youth come in the job market. Our effort will be to coordinate with the state governments and other agencies to find employment avenues for them,” he told reporters here.

After coming to power in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi created the new ministry for coordination of all skill development efforts across the country, removal of disconnect between demand and supply of skilled manpower, building the vocational and technical training framework and skill up- gradation, he said.

He said his job would be to skill youth on a large scale with speed. “We will increase the pace and take forward the work already done (under Rajiv Pratap Rudy),” he said. Pradhan, who was elevated as Cabinet Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas in the reshuffle carried out by Modi yesterday, said realtime data would be used to map sectorwise employment opportunities.

Skill Development Ministry is an additional charge that he has been given.