Rajan Bahadur, CEO, Tourism & Hospitality Skill Council.

The recent Finance Budget presented by Hon’ble Minister of Finance on 1^st February 2023 was well received by all sectors. The budget in particular is focussed on sectors such as infrastructure, railways, agriculture, food processing, tourism and education.

We at THSC are very excited and enthused by this budget which covered Tourism and Hospitality which is one the largest growing sector along with Education & Skill Development to meet the continuous need of skilled workforce to cater the needs of industry.

The new initiatives under Tourism such as last mile connectivity, development of apps to help the tourists in identifying high standard food streets, developing tourist circuits with focus on “Dekho apna Desh” and “Swadesh Darshan” and “Vibrant village” programs will be a game changer.

It’s very important for the sector to revamp overall Tourist experience which will attract more Foreign Tourist Arrivals and we await to see a detailed plan from the government on development of Infrastructures.

Tourism & Hospitality sector holds huge opportunities for jobs and entrepreneurship for youth. This focused budget, in which INR 1,16,417 crores has been marked exclusively for Education & Skill development, is one of the highest ever budget allocation for Education and Skill Development.

Skill development will be met majorly through high emphasis on Apprenticeship, Digital Skills Portal, Center of Excellence and flagship scheme Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 4.0.

Under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme 47 lakh youth will be industry trained and provided stipend through recently introduced Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). THSC till date has over 25000 contracts under Apprenticeship and will keep working aggressively to exceed the numbers.

Demand Based Skilling, commonly known as Industry Led Skilling will link students and industry through a newly created Digital Platform. This will also benefit new age entrepreneurs and generate local opportunities. Hospitality industry which has recently recovered post Covid-19 pandemic is in dire need of skilled workers. We are already seeing green shoots where large participation is happening for Industry led skilling and this announcement will further strengthen the model.

The PMKVY 4.0 will see a major overhaul with higher participation from industry through On the Job Training, Customized courses, New Age Technology and will impact lakhs of youth. Under PMKVY scheme 1.0 till 3.0 THSC has played a major role by providing skill development opportunities to more than 6 lakhs beneficiaries.

30 new Skill India International Centres will be opened across states for International standard training giving global opportunities for our youths. Currently THSC has 8 Center of Excellence and we ourselves target to set up 10 new in the coming years which will help us immensely to train youth of the World Skills competitions.

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