The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), launched in 2015, has skilled 1,60,33,081 candidates till 2024, the government said on Wednesday.

In a reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Jayant Chaudhary stated that PMKVY aims to impart skill development training through Short-Term Training (STT).

The scheme also provides up-skilling and re-skilling through Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) to youth across the country.

“Under the PMKVY scheme, a total of 1,60,33,081 candidates have been trained/ oriented,” till December 31, 2024, Chaudhary said.

The first three versions of the scheme -- PMKVY 1.0, PMKVY 2.0 and PMKVY 3.0 -- implemented from FY 2015-16 to FY 2021-22, tracked placements under the STT component of PMKVY.

Till PMKVY 3.0, the reported placement rate in STT-certified candidates was 43 per cent, Chaudhary said.

“Under PMKVY 4.0, the focus is to empower our trained candidates to choose their varied career path, and they are suitably oriented for the same,” the MoS said.

“PMKVY 4.0 is a Central Sector Scheme. Under PMKVY 4.0, during the last three financial years including the current financial year (as on December 31, 2024), Rs 1244.52 crore has been utilised across States/UTs,” he added.

Further, to enable employment opportunities, the Skill Development Ministry launched the Skill India Digital Hub (SIDH) platform.

SIDH will integrate skilling, education, employment, and entrepreneurship ecosystems.

The Ministry also launched several steps to address skill gaps, improve employability, and support economic growth to ensure the successful implementation and expansion of PMKVY 4.0.

This includes a focus on new age skills like Industry 4.0, Web 3.0, AR/VR, climate change, circular economy, green economy, etc; greater reliance on-job-training (OJT) for better practical exposure to candidates; flexibility in course curriculums by introducing courses in partnership with industry.