Project Objective:
Utkarsh Bangla(“Utkarsh Bangla” means “Excellence through Skilling in Bengal”) is the flagship program of integrated skill development steered by the Government of West Bengal. With an annual target of 600,000 persons, the programme aims at creating a pool of skilled candidates who are industry ready. Catering to youths, who are mostly from underprivileged backgrounds, it also encourages school graduates to enroll in technical trainings. While expanding the outreach of skilling, the e-Governance portal of Utkarsh Bangla allows a cogent monitoring and capacity building of all stakeholders involved.
Results Achieved:
Since inception, 1.0 million candidates have undergone skilling with around 120,000 biometric attendances being captured daily, operating close to 332 courses, spread across geographies, the portal has been able to integrate 6,00,000 prospective Trainees, 152 Polytechnics, 250 Industrial Training Institutes, 3390 Vocational Training & 1,836 Skill Training Centres, Councils at State & National level, Administrators & Employers.
Impact Generated:
The portal has helped in broadening the canvas of the skill ecosystem, the portal has allowed the convergence with different departments & stakeholders, including Government & private partners to deliver the mandate of skilling in a holistic manner. The portal has made the scheme accessible to most marginalized sections while creating a ready repository of trained youth for employment. It offers end-to-end e-Services for trainees, from course enquiry till final certification and industry connect. The portal also facilitates Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) by providing training on soft skills & entrepreneurship to persons who are already working in the unorganized sector. The portal has been instrumental in providing accessibility to skill training and takes firm strides towards achieving inclusive growth.

http://www.pbssd.gov.in

• State of West Bengal, India

• Youth
• Women
• People with disabilities
• The unemployed
• The poor
• Remote and rural communities

The project is replicable in any other state as the entire digital eco-system has been designed to provide end-to-end ICT based solution for skill development. Relevant national master directories have been used and the software has been developed in Open Source & Open Standards to ensure easy scalability & replicability.

The study organised by West Bengal Planning Commission reveals that, between the years 2017-2022, there will be an addition of around 9 million into the working age group. Around 18.5 million will be added to the working age group over the next decade. The state workforce would reach 31.8 million by 2022. Such a huge workforce needs to be skilled to ensure demographic dividend and achieve the economic growth through sustainable development. According to a WTO working paper, GDP levels increase by about 3 percentage points in 2035 if India improves significantly on skill training.

Under this backdrop, in order to bridge the gap of the demand & supply of skilled workforce, the Govt of West Bengal came up with the unique Scheme “Utkarsh Bangla” to provide skill training using Govt run / aided Industrial Training Institutes, Polytechnics, Vocational Training Centres as well as through private Training Partners under Public-Private-Partnership. The constant demand of skilled manpower by the industry and the keenness of the Govt to boost supply of skilled manpower in the labor market make the “Utkarsh Bangla” sustainable.

The Utkarsh Bangla programme uses existing Govt machinery at State as well as district level, with a well defined structure and decentralised role distribution among all stakeholders, to run the programme. In order to make the scheme more accessible, efficient and transparent, the use of end to end ICT enabled solution through portal is envisaged. It also uses the national digital infrastructure to build its e-Governance platform to ensure less programme overhead and sustainability in the long term.

The Utkarsh Bangla programme promotes WSIS values in the society by empowering the poor, particularly those living in remote, rural and marginalized areas, to access information and to support their efforts, to acquire necessary skills and lift themselves out of poverty. The programme promotes access to information and knowledge, to all persons in the society. The project takes into account the special needs of persons with disabilities and disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. The project promotes knowledge economy, based on capacity building through access to information, which helps in building a more robust and inclusive society. The project envisages to, make a long-term impact on employability of the persons and reduce inequality. The project also stresses on gender equality through exclusive training centres for women and Person with disabilities. The Utkarsh Bangla programme also ensures Green Governance as it has reduced usage of paper in managing the programme.There is also provision for eLearning under this programme which helps the trainees greatly to attend skill development programmes from remote areas.