Nitin Gadkari urges highway builders to train road construction workers

The Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari has exhorted highways builders, contractors, and skill development institutions to come forward in a big way to train the local, unemployed youth in highways construction, and to upgrade the skills of existing workers.

Chairing a meeting of Ministry officials with representatives of National Highways Builders Federation and several construction training institutions in New Delhi yesterday, Gadkari said that his Ministry will pay Rs 15,000 per trainee (on the basis of minimum wages) as stipend to compensate for loss of wage during the training period. The payment would be made directly to the Aadhar-linked bank account of the trainee. In addition, it would also be made mandatory for every contractor, who is awarded a highways contract, to train at least 10 persons for every Rs 1 crore spent on the project. 

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is in active consultation with stakeholders to finalise the programme for skill upgradation of highway construction workers and drivers of commercial vehicles. The programme, proposed to work on the PPP model, is aimed at upskilling both unemployed local youth as well as those already working under contractors. The National Highways Builders Federation, OEMs and NHAI would be the main programme partners. 

The Indian Academy of Highway Engineers (IAHE) will be the lead agency and will coordinate all activities pertaining to the training programmes. Standards of training programmes, intake, syllabi, trainee-trainer ratio and other parameters for the training programmes, within the National Skill Quality Framework, will be finalised by IAHE with the approval of the Ministry. The training will be imparted in various trades related to highways construction such as masonry, concreting, machine operation and so on. 

The programme aims to start with training 20,000 highway construction workers immediately and increasing the numbers so that the manpower requirement of the sector is fulfilled together with the creation of employment opportunities for jobless youth.

Gadkari said such active intervention to promote skill upgradation will benefit lakhs of unskilled and under-skilled local, unemployed youth in the near future. The course content and certification will be as per approved standards of the Ministry of Skill Development. He stated that accountability and proper auditing will be the key elements of implementation together with putting online, all details of trained workers for ensuring complete transparency. 

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