From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Mar 15: As many as 100 skill development centres (SDCs) across will be established by the State Government across Karnataka for imparting training in nine technical trades to 8th class passed or 10th standards failed candidates.

The SDCs would be opened in June to impart skills in trades such as mason, plumbing, barb bending and scaffolding, carpentry, painting, tiles laying, electrician, welding and fabrication, and interior decoration.

Labour Minister B N Bache Gowda, who announced the State Government’s decision, said Workers Welfare Board and a committee headed by the Principal Secretary, Labour Department, has been constituted to work out the modalities of training courses and its duration.

All the proposed SDCs would be set up in places which did not have any training institutes now.

Twenty candidates would be selected for each batch. Each SDC would be manned by a retired engineer or retired principal of the industrial training institute and four each teaching and non-teaching faculty.

Staff would be hired on contract basis, the minister said explaining that the candidates selected for training would be given stipend of Rs 300, Rs 250 and Rs 200 per day in the limits of city corporations, district headquarters and other regions respectively.

A sum of Rs 185 crore would be spent on construction of buildings for SDCs and Rs 25.92 crore for payment of monthly salary for training faculty a year.

The construction cost of each SDC would be Rs 1.85 crore.

He said the Board has Rs 1506 crore in its account and a total of 2,52,938 workers have registered with the Board.

A total of 15,155 workers benefited from various schemes. Lack of education among workers was a major reason for low number of registration.

More than 1.40 lakh students would receive training in 42 trades in government, aided and private industrial training institutes in the state a year, the minister added.