MSDE formulates new affiliation norms for Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs)

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has taken effective steps towards improving the quality of ITIs in the country. According to a press release circulated on 8th February 2018, a new set of affiliation/accreditation rules have been introduced to revive the entire ITI ecosystem. There are about 13,000+ ITIs in India that provide practical and hands-on technical and skill training, and make a considerable number of youth employable and industry-ready. The new norms have been formulated to control the spread of unauthorised and illegal institutes across India. These newly-framed standards aim to ensure that the procedural and civil norms are strictly adhered to in all the existing and future ITIs, so that the overall quality of these institutes improves.

Salient features of the new affiliation norms for ITIs are:

• The civil and infrastructural requirements have been majorly overhauled. The minimum requirement for building ITIs has been reduced.
• The application and assessment stage for ITIs has also been made digital to simplify the process. The contenders can apply and receive acknowledgement online.
• A new ITI can be set up with 4 trades and the minimum plot size will be around 1 acre to accommodate all technical requirements.
• The land lease period has also been reduced to 10 years to assist entrepreneurs aspiring to enter the long-term training space.
• Stringent physical inspection of infrastructure and machinery to be done by an expert committee.

These new affiliation norms supersede all the previous civil and procedural norms for affiliating ITIs under the aegis of National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT).These norms will be applicable for new proposals from academic session 2018-19 and accordingly, arrangement is being made to invite new proposals for ITIs on a IT based platform, which would be soon notified.

While designing these norms, efforts were made to standardize the Civil infrastructure of ITIs so that the institutes across the country have similar buildings and facilities. The procedure for seeking affiliation has also been redefined to make it simpler and transparent, by dividing it in a 3-stage process

• 1st stage: Desktop Assessment
• 2nd stage: Civil Infrastructure Assessment
• 3rd stage: Equipment, power, IT lab and other Infrastructure Assessment

The affiliation and procedural norms for Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) have been revised by NCVT in consultation with the expert committees, trade experts, industry, academia and the State governments specially to improve training in unserved blocks of the country.

There is a total of 13,912 (as on 30^th Oct 2017) ITIs across the country fulfilling the vocational needs across various sectors. A very rigorous process of cross-examining the ITIs have been undertaken in order to rule out the ones which are not performing as per expectations or where the desired number of students are not enrolled. This has resulted in the de-affiliation of around 385 ITIs in the last 5 years. This will ensure that only the ITIs functioning well, with good infrastructure and satisfactory training facilities, impart training to our youth.

The ITI ecosystem has been adeptly delivering technically trained workforce to various industries in India. ITIs have seen a steady rise in the past 6 decades in terms of quantity but its quality aspect still requires a lot of attention. Keeping in mind the large demographic dividend which will fulfil the work demand of the ageing world in the coming time, Government has taken this bold step of reviewing and introducing new affiliation norms to cater to the burgeoning demand.

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s flagship schemes like Make in India, Digital India, Smart Cities and Clean India require skilled manpower which will be fulfilled by the youth training from ITIs. The ITIs adhering the new affiliation norms will ensure that the training imparted to students is at par with the international standards.

(This is republished from PIB, MSDE news release)