Central Bharat Sevak Samaj (CBSS) commemorates its 70th anniversary at the National Conference in Delhi

Central Bharat Sevak Samaj (CBSS) held a national conference and celebrated its 70th Anniversary on 12th August 2022 in New Delhi. The conference saw enthusiastic participation from the dignitaries along with the participants representing different CBSS centres across India. Freedom from poverty, freedom from deprivation, freedom to do things our way, freedom to be creative, and freedom to contribute to the development of the country were the topics discussed and resonated with the 75th year of Indian independence and Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.

The eminent speakers included Shri B. S. Balachandran, Chairman, CBSS; Dr. Darlie Oommen Koshy, Chief Mentor, CBSS; Shri Krishna Kumar Dwivedi, IAS, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Govt. of India; Shri M. M. Hasan, Janasree Microfin Ltd; Prof. M. D. Nalapat, UNESCO Peace Chair, Manipal University; Padmasri Dr. K. M. Cherian, MD, Frontier Lifeline Hospitals and Ms. Jaya Sreekumar, General Secretary, CBSS. Dr. Anil Sahasdrabuddhe, Chairman, AICTE and Ms. Jaya Sreekumar, General Secretary, CBSS. Mr. Sag Moeson, Vice Chairman, CBSS, launched the event with the welcome address.

Dr. Darlie Oommen Koshy, Chief Mentor, CBSS addressed the audience saying, “The country is moving towards the convergence of general education, vocational education and technical education. We are seeing a great moment of the significance for the people who are associated with Central BSS.” During a presentation, Dr. Darlie Oommen Koshy added, “Every organization undergoes change just like human beings, there were different periods of times in the history of Central BSS where different activities got pre dominance and we are emphasizing more on vocational education presently though it is not new to us because the evolution of vocational education to focusing on skills came about in 2009 when the first national skill development policy was announced. Then later NSDC and NSDA was set up, taking from there the new government in 2014 made a leap forward, for first time a ministry for skill development and entrepreneurship was set up. Also the gap we found in the rural areas is that, though they are getting ratios and other facilities from the government but the skill gap is what keeping them not financially stable for a long time, unless we equip them with skills and improve their productivity and competencies on various fields”.

Shri B. S. Balachandran, Chairman, CBSS while speaking about the history of Central BSS and addressed the issues in the country, he emphasized stating, “We want to focus on how to strengthen our country, how to strengthen our organization and in that space, we saw that we want to equip our human resources with proper skill, that is why Central BSS is raising a slogan, “total employment training for total development”. With employment training only we can move forward, we want to skill the unskilled people of the country and want to address the people who have completed their 10th standard or above from last seven years we working on this activity”. 

After the inaugural address, the event saw the launch of the BASE (Bharat Antyodaya Skill Education) program and the concept of BHASRIC (Bharat Skill Research and Innovation Center). The CBSS BASE brochure was revealed  by Shri Krishna Kumar Dwivedi, IAS, Joint Secretary, MSDE, Govt. of India and the BHASRIC brochure was revealed and launched by Dr. Anil Sahasdrabuddhe, Chairman, AICTE. An MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) was signed between CBSS and SkillEd India to formalise a skill training programs from CBSS in compliance with NSQF.

“I am happy to know that on the 70th anniversary of central BSS they are reinforcing the efforts of vocational education and training. During my interaction with Dr. Darlie Koshy, I was informed that CBSS has completed training almost 2 million youths in close to 4000 trades across the country during last 70 years. I am sure that these numbers will further increase significantly after the launch of the BASE (Bharat Antyodaya Skill Education) program. As we celebrate the 75th year of independence to create Atma Nirbhar Bharat for the future all eyes are set on the young workforce to reap the demographic dividend in the country”, said Shri Krishna Kumar Dwivedi, IAS, Joint Secretary, MSDE, Govt. of India. He also stressed on saying by 2030, India will be the largest and youngest workforce with more than half of its population below the age of 25 years.

Dr. Anil Sahasdrabuddhe, Chairman, AICTE said, “Every individual who gets education must also have some skills, without skills, education will mean nothing and without education, skill is also nothing because they may not be able to achieve their best performance if they are not educated. Therefore, both education and skills are as important for each individual in the country. We are of 1.35 billion population, we are not small and the youth in the age group of 15 to 29 who are the demographic dividend creators if you do not support and mentor them and not give them the right kind of education along with skills, they will not be able to contribute to the economy, that is why this whole initiative of central BSS is significant”.

Shri M. M. Hasan, Janasree Microfin Ltd said, “Our main mission is to observe the society even at the minuet angle level, evaluate and assess the problem to arrive at a solution. If I take a look at my experience with the micro finance sector, people always raise the demand to have small and medium loads for educational purposes. Assurance from the financial institutions is highly essential for the students to carry on with their studies and it is the duty of all concert to ensure that financial institutions never let down the hope of an individual by hesitating financial support”. Shri M. M. Hasan also emphasized on saying it is equally important to generate employment opportunities for women and train them with skills. 

The program also included interesting presentations on different aspects of the impact created through skill development and vocational training from Sri. SAG Moeson, Vice Chairman, Central BSS; Sri. Bindu Ketan, BSS Computer Institute, Gujrat; Sri. Subroto Paul, Eduvista Skill Power Academy, West Bengal; Sri. Padmanva Dalbehera, General Secretary, Central BSS during Plenary Session and followed by presentations from Chairperson Dr. M. R. Thampan, Board of Examination, Central BSS; Sri. B. S. Gopakumar, Vice Chairman, Central BSS; Dr. Madhuri Dubey, Founder of NSN about evolving skill development ecosystem in India and orbit shift challenges and opportunities for CBSS by Sri. Rajiv Mathur, CEO, SkillEd India-Kedman.

Also read: Celebrating 70 years of Central Bharat Sevak Samaj (CBSS): Impacting youth with skills and livelihoods https://nationalskillsnetwork.in/celebrating-70-years-of-central-bharat-sevak-samaj-cbss-impacting-youth-with-skills-and-livelihoods/

The program concluded with the 70th Anniversary celebrations of  CBSS and Prof. M. D. Nalapat was honoured with the “Bharat Chakra” award, and the “Bharat Karmasri” award was given to different centre heads of CBSS who had contributed to nation building based on their performance; the awards were presented by Sri. B. S. Balachandran, Chairman, Central BSS.