New Delhi, Dec 13 (IANS): Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Monday said that the digital skills are now an important requirement for every Indian.

Responding to a question of a BJP Member during Question Hour in Lok Sabha, the minister said: "Covid era has driven home the fact that digital skills is an important requirement for every Indian and accordingly new sets of programmes have been designed and are being offered in hybrid mode along with the existing programmes."

The BJP Member wanted to know that since 80 per cent of farmers do not even understand the meaning of 'digital', how would they be trained in it.

Chandrasekhar said that the government has been aiming to work on employability and income increase through skill development.

Referring to the skill development among the tribal youths and population, the Minister further said that under the 'New Education Policy', the vocational training has been integrated into education, and the government will soon deliver vocational and skilling programmes through Eklavya schools" on the skilling network in Maharashtra's tribal population and other parts of the tribal areas of the country.

Responding to another question, the minister said that under the 'Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna', over 15 lakh youths in Maharashtra have been imparted with the skill development training of which more than three lakh tribal youths were trained under the PMKVY. Over Rs 90 crore was granted to the Maharashtra government for the same.

"Employability is an important outcome of the schemes we run, and different schemes render different employability outcomes. Employability and income increase is something we want to ensure for every scheme," the minister informed, in reply to a question.

To BJP Member S.S. Ahluwalia's query whether the training has been imparted in local language or not, the Minister said that for training, the local languages are used.