New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the central scheme ‘PM Vishwakarma’ Wednesday — aimed at upskilling and giving financial support to traditional craftsmen and workers.
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the scheme would focus on skilling, upgrading tools, giving credit support and facilitating access to the market for such artisans. These workers are mostly from the other backward classes (OBC).
The minister added the programme would benefit 30 lakh craftsmen and their families in the country.
He said Rs 500 per day would be given as stipend to those who undertake the skilling – basic and advanced. “Rs 15,000 will be given for the purchase of modern tools. The government will also give a loan of up to Rs 1 lakh at five per cent interest as capital support in the first tranche. In the second tranche, they will get Rs 2 lakh,” Vaishnaw said, adding this scheme would help rural workers who have been in a family profession for generations.
Modi announced the scheme in his 77th Independence Day speech Tuesday, allocating an initial fund of Rs 13,000 for craftsmen who work with tools such as masons, washermen, locksmiths, boatsmen, potters, carpenters, hairdressers, goldsmiths, etc. The financial outlay will be for five years, till 2028 and will commence from 17 September this year.
The move is seen as an outreach to the OBC community who work mostly in the unorganised sector.
The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSME) will be the nodal ministry for the scheme, and 18 trades have been identified so far which will be covered in it.
The CCEA also gave a nod to the “PM-eBus Sewa” which will add 10,000 e-buses to the country’s fleet, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said, elaborating that the operations would be supported for 10 years.
Thakur said this would run on a private-public partnership model, and would have an estimated cost of Rs 57,613 crore, of which the central government would foot Rs 20,000 crore.
The Cabinet also greenlit seven multi-tracking projects of the Indian Railways at an estimated cost of Rs 32,500 crore, Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
The proposed projects will help increase existing line capacity, smoothen train operations, reduce congestion and facilitate ease of travelling and transportation.
The projects covering 35 districts in nine states — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal — will increase the existing network of Indian Railways by 2,339 kilometres.
On the digital front, the Cabinet extended the ‘Digital India’ project with an outlay of Rs 14,903 crore, Vaishnaw said, adding this will supplement the work done under the previous version of the scheme.
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