Textile Ministry launches an e-platform for ISDS and helpline for handloom weavers

The Union Ministry for Textiles has recently launched an e-platform for ISDS and a helpline for helping handloom weavers. The occasion was Good Governance Day 2016 when the Union Minister for Textiles Ms. Smriti Zubin Irani launched the following initiatives in Delhi.

• Online dashboard or an e-platform for Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS) hosted on the NIC Cloud
• Bunkar Mitra – a helpline for handholding of Handloom weavers
• ‘Jute Smart’ an online portal to facilitate purchase of Jute bags from the Jute Industry by the State Procurement Agencies

Key features of the ISDS e-platform or online portal

• The portal will provide live information sourced from MIS on a dedicated page of the Ministry’s website
• It will give state-wise, sector-wise, category-wise progress of training programmes under the scheme across the country along with details of the training centers, names of trainees enrolled in a program.
• The prospective trainees can also identify a center close to their native place.
• The portal utilizes the benefits of existing state-of- the-art secured Government cloud set up by NIC as the present version of ISDS-MIS is hosted on a private cloud.

Industry linkage and employment opportunities in textiles

The strength of the textile industry, especially the textile and clothing sector, can be leveraged in two ways. While skilled workforce will provide competitive edge to the textile industry in the global market, it will also be a tool for participative and inclusive growth by providing job opportunities to the unemployed rural youth preferably below matriculates and from marginalized section of the societies. Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS), the flagship demand driven placement linked skilling programme of the Ministry is an initiative towards this direction. The Ministry is partnering with State Government Agencies, industry, major textile training institutions, Textile Research Organizations and industry associations for implementing the scheme. Out of the 12th Plan target of 15 lakh persons under the scheme, the Ministry has so far trained a total of 8.82 lakh persons.

With an objective to ensure transparency in implementation and also to maintain accountability, Ministry has taken following measures under the scheme:

• Outcome based approach with mandatory placement of 70% of trainees.
• Towards digitization, a web based centralized Management Information System (MIS) platform giving interface to all stakeholders has been operationalized for ease of monitoring of implementation of training programme.
• Biometric attendance of trainees is captured mandatorily during the training cycle and the data is pushed to MIS on live basis.
• Aadhaar platform has been introduced in MIS for identification of trainees and to avoid duplicity in enrolment.
• Third party assessment of trainees after training has been made mandatory across the scheme.
• Random physical verification of live training centres is carried out through field offices of Ministry.
• QR code enabled e-certificates are issued to passed out trainees facilitating verification of the credentials of trainees by prospective employer using QR code scanner.

Bunkar Mitra — handloom helpline centre

Currently 28 Weavers’ Service Centres (WSCs) are functioning across the country to provide technical assistance to handloom weavers in improving their skills. For seeking assistance, weavers have to personally visit the WSCs. As on date, there is no single point of contact where weavers can seek solutions for their technical issues/problems.

In order to overcome these problems, the Central Government has decided to establish a “Bunkar Mitra-Handloom Helpline Centre” where professional queries of weavers will be answered by the experts in the field. This helpline will function from 10.00 a.m to 6 p.m. and initially it will be provided in 6 languages viz., Hindi, English and 4 other regional languages (Telugu, Tamil, Bengali & Assamese).

To set up this helpline, online bids were called by following the due e-procurement process. M/s. MSD (I) P. Ltd., Bhopal has been selected as an agency for providing Handloom Helpline Centre and LOI was issued on 30.11.2016.   A period of 30 days has been given for making entire installation and set-up of call centre and to make it operative.

(This article is based on a press release from the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India)