About DDUGKY

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), the skill training and placement program of the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) and Kerala State (Kudumbashree) occupies a unique position amongst other skill training programmes, due to its focus on the rural poor youth and its emphasis on sustainable employment through the prominence and incentives given to post-placement tracking, retention and career progression. Even as India moves towards becoming an international skills hub, there is a need to acknowledge the challenges preventing the rural poor from taking advantage of this momentous economic transition. Lack of formal education, marketable skills and other constraints imposed by poverty place significant entry barriers to today’s job market. DDU-GKY is therefore designed to not only provide high quality skill training opportunities to the rural poor, but also to establish a larger ecosystem that supports trained candidates secure a better future.

Kerala State has the special distinction of following a model of development, which places it well above other Indian States in terms of key development indicators such as health, education, social welfare and participatory governance. Kerala State ranks high among other Indian states on several factors such as Human Development Index that stands first in India, Gender Development Index, educational attainment and life expectancy. Kerala has an enviable tradition of literacy and social development along with abundant natural resources making it a unique State among all Indian states. The thrust given for building infrastructure for education and health has brought about significant improvement in the quality of life of the people. There are however critical areas and vulnerable groups whose needs have not been fully met by existing interventions. The State government has positioned around 30- 35% of the population as subject to relative deprivation qualifying them as poor, or at risk of poverty. The peculiar fact that more than 22% of the households in the State are headed by women makes those households extremely vulnerable. Empowering these sections economically and socially cannot occur in a vacuum and requires complementary interventions. If left unattended, the weight of coping will leave these sections unable to improve its status and overall wellbeing. It will also trap the families in an unending cycle of indebtedness and exploitation. The rural poverty situation in the State is highly complex and greatly differentiated by geography, demography and social class. It is multi-dimensional and influenced by systematic as well as structural changes in the economy. Vast majority of poor are engaged in low skilled jobs and belong to the unorganized sector. Due to low skills, as it does not offer mobility in terms of income and hence, livelihood opportunities have remained stagnated for this segment of people.

Their labour conditions are also exploitative and majority of these workers belong to socially deprived classes. In addition, the rural poor have a limited skill base that restricts their occupational mobility to benefit from the urban centric growth process. Poverty denies the poor households access to a wide range of services including skill development. Lack of access to last- mile services further intensifies their poverty and affects their food security, health and nutritional status. One of the major policy challenges the State faces today is how to provide skilling and up skilling opportunities to the low skilled and unorganized rural poor. Another annoying factor is that the unemployment rate in the State is assuming gigantic proportions in the recent times compared to other states. The figures of Employment Exchanges in Kerala indicate that contrary to the all India scenario, the number of job seekers is increasing year after year. As per the Economic Review report, 2012, Kerala State is in fourth position in unemployment level among other Indian states, with an unemployment level of 9.9 per cent. While comparing the unemployment rate of male and female, it is seen that UR is much higher among females as compared to males. Educational qualification-wise break up reveals a disturbing picture. The number of work seekers below SSLC has sharply decreased from 9.52 lakh in 2000 to 5.98 lakh as on September 2012. Whereas, the total number of work seekers who possess SSLC and above has been increasing year after year.

It should be noted that 77% of those seeking employment in the State are those with education up to Higher Secondary level. It can be said without much hesitation that the unemployment is high among the poorer sections of the society. Thus it is the poor that are increasingly approaching the employment exchanges to find jobs. Yet another critical fact in this regard is the high proportion of women. It may be assumed that about 25 lakhs persons (55- 60% of them women) belonging to BPL and economically weaker families are unemployed and on the lookout for suitable employment opportunities. Kerala is already a model among emerging states and countries when it comes to provision of acceptable standards of welfare for workers. Neverthelebss, special care has to be taken to ensure that dignity of labour is enhanced both by improving their skills and by making them a partner in the growth process so that they can get higher remuneration. Kerala’s work force has to equip itself with skills and mindset that enhance high productivity and creativity. This will enable them to enjoy a much better standard of living.

Kudumbashree strives to develop the model of a micro finance led financial security process into a more comprehensive model of local economic development under the aegis of local self governments. This would hopefully sustain the transformation of the local governance agenda from welfare to entitlement. Such a transformation does not come about easily and requires rewriting established administrative and development practices. It requires the community acquiring voice and being heard. It requires institutionalizing processes that allow for participation and meaningful contribution.

Kudumbashree, in its significant role in implementing multi pronged empowerment and capacity building activities for the poor, understand and appreciate the reasons behind the disconnect experienced by the State between steady growth on one side and increasing unemployment on the other side, which is largely attributed to the positive feedback emanating from a skill biased growth pattern. Most of the State’s poor make their living in the unorganized or informal sector. Kudumbashree believes that they need to either increase productivity of their existing activities or to acquire skills enough to gain better paying jobs in the formal sector to get out of poverty and affirms that productivity improvement in the informal sector through improving access to crucial inputs, and conversion of the unskilled into skilled will definitely have an impact on poverty. With its strong community back up, universality of reach, experience and expertise in mobilization, capability for community interface in local governance and understanding of the micro and macro economic profile of the State, Kudumbashree has an important role and function in the implementation of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (erstwhile Aajeevika Skills) for poor rural youth.