The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved stipendiary support of Rs. 3,054 crore for apprentices undergoing apprenticeship training under the Ministry of Education’s National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
Industry and commercial organisations would train approximately 9 lakh apprentices. NATS is a well-established Government of India scheme that has been shown to improve the employability of students who have completed their apprenticeship training.
Apprentices who have finished a degree or diploma programme in Engineering, Humanities, Science, or Commerce will be paid a monthly stipend of Rs.9,000 and Rs.8,000, respectively.
The government has approved the spending of approximately Rs. 3,000 crore for the next five years, which is roughly 4.5 times what was spent in the previous five years. This increased investment in training is in accordance with the emphasis placed on an apprenticeship in the National Education Policy 2020.
In keeping with the Government emphasis on “SabkaSaath, SabkaVikas, SabkaVishwas, SabkaPrayaas”, the scope of NATS has further been expanded to include students from Humanities, Science and Commerce besides students from the engineering stream. This scheme aims to raise the standards of skill level by strengthening the skill ecosystem and as a result, will provide employment to approximately 7 lakh youths in the next five years.
Also read: Apprenticeship schemes in India: NAPS and NATS https://nationalskillsnetwork.in/apprenticeship-schemes-in-india-naps-and-nats/
The NATS will provide apprenticeships in the emerging areas under ‘Production Linked Incentive’ (PLI) such as Mobile manufacturing, Medical devices manufacturing, Pharma sector, Electronics and Technology products, Automobile sector among others. The scheme will also be preparing skilled manpower for connectivity in logistics industry sectors, identified under GatiShakti.
