Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination (Topic: Samarth Scheme)

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Samarth Scheme

Textile Sector in India provides largest source of employment in the country with over 4.5 crore people employed directly and another 6 crores people in allied sector including large number of women and rural population through various schemes and public programmes.
As far as ‘Samarth - Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector (SCBTS)’ is concerned, at present, 23 empanelled implementing partners have commenced the training programme under the scheme in 11 States.

In order to meet the skill gap in the industry and also to supplement its efforts initiated through the Special Package for Garments and Made-ups, the Government has approved the new scheme titled Samarth - “Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector (SCBTS)” for the entire value chain of textile except Spinning and Weaving in the organized sector .
Key objectives of the scheme are:
To provide demand driven, placement oriented National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) compliant skilling programmes to incentivize and supplement the efforts of the industry in creating jobs in the organized textile and related sectors, covering the entire value chain of textile, excluding Spinning and Weaving.
To promote skilling and skill upgradation in the traditional sectors of handlooms, handicrafts, sericulture and jute.
To enable provision of sustainable livelihood either by wage or self employment to all sections of the society across the country.
The Scheme would target to train 10.00 lakh persons (9 lakhs in organised & 1 lakh in traditional sector)

Some of the advanced features of SAMARTH scheme include Training of Trainers (ToT), Aadhar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS), CCTV recording of training programme, dedicated call centre with helpline number, mobile app based Management Information System (MIS) and on-line monitoring of the training process.
Under Samarth, 18 State Governments have been allocated a training target of 3.6 lakh beneficiaries for conducting training programme in traditional and organized sectors.
Further, Ministry initiated the process of empanelling industry/industry associations for undertaking industry oriented entry level skilling programmes in the organized sectors.
A total of 76 industries have been empanelled under Entry level skilling and allocated a training target of 1.36 lakh beneficiaries. Also, 44 industries for upskilling programme have been empanelled and allocated training target of 30,000 beneficiaries.
With a view to improve the participation of MSME in the skilling programme, a separate Request for Proposal (RFP) was floated to empanel industry associations working with MSME sector textile industries.

Textiles industry in India is one of the largest in the world with a huge raw material base and manufacturing strength across all value chains.
The strength of India’s textiles industry lies both in the hand woven sector as well as mill sector.
Traditional sectors like handloom, handicrafts and small scale power loom are the biggest source of employment for millions of people in rural and semi-urban areas.
This industry contributes to 7% of industrial output in value terms, 2% of India’s GDP and 15% of the country’s export earnings.
Textiles sectors employ over 45 million people.
Additional requirement of about 17 million by the year 2022.
In the last four years 8.58 lakh persons trained in partnership with 58 Government and industry partners.

To enhance exports of textiles including woollen, silk and cellulose fibers from India, the Government has enhanced rates under Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) from 2% to 4% for apparel, 5% to 7% for made-ups, handloom and handicrafts from 1st November 2017.
Further, the Government has enhanced interest equalization rate for pre and post-shipment credit for the textile sector from 3% to 5% from 2nd November, 2018.
For the silk sector, Government has introduced ‘Silk Samagra Scheme’ to promote R&D and brand image of Indian silk at the global level and provide support to beneficiaries from nursery to fabric production stage for improvement in productivity and quality.