Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY)
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) aims to skill rural youth who are poor and provide them with jobs having regular monthly wages or above the minimum wages. It is one of the cluster of initiatives of the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India that seeks to promote rural livelihoods. It is a part of the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) - the Mission for poverty reduction called Aajeevika. The scheme will benefit more than 55 million poor rural youth who are ready to be skilled by providing sustainable employment.This scheme derives importance from its potential to reduce poverty. It is also designed to be a major contributor to the Prime Minister's 'Make in India' campaign.
- Awareness building within the community on the opportunities.
- Identifying rural youth who are poor.
- Mobilizing rural youth who are interested.
- Counseling of youth and parents.
- Selection based on aptitude.
- Imparting knowledge, industry linked skills and attitude that enhance employability.
- Providing jobs that can be verified through methods that can stand up to independent scrutiny, and which pays above minimum wages.
- Supporting the person so employed for sustainability after placement
Full social inclusion of the candidates is ensured by the mandatory coverage of socially disadvantaged group. 50% of the funds would be earmarked for SCs and STs, 15% to minorities and 3% for persons with disabilities. One third of the persons covered should be women.
Regional inclusion of candidates is enabled through a special sub scheme for the youth of Jammu and Kashmir called Himayat, which MoRD operates under ASDP for state which covers urban as well as rural youth and Below Poverty line (BPL) as well as Above Poverty line (APL) persons. Moreover, Roshni - a special scheme for tribal areas and critical Left Wing Extremist (LWE) affected districts with separate guidelines has been launched that takes into account the peculiar situation in selected critical LWE districts. Particularly it provides training for different time periods.
- DDU-GKY follows a 3-tier implementation model.
- The DDU-GKY National Unit at MoRD functions as the policy-making, technical support and facilitation agency.
- The DDU-GKY State Missions provide implementation support; and the Project Implementing Agencies implement the programme through skilling and placement projects.
DDU-GKY is applicable to the entire country. The scheme is being implemented currently in 33 States/UTs across 610 districts partnering currently with over 202 PIAs covering more than 250 trades across 50+ sectors.