Hyderabad-based skill assessment and training social venture Focus SkillPro (P) Ltd, which operates under the brand of SkillPro, has received close to Rs 18.4 crore (approximately $3 million) from National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to train half a million people on various kind of jobs across the country, according to a press release.
The partnership with NSDC and funds, which is in the form of a grant, will enable SkillPro to create 220 centres across the country over the next three years. SkillPro currently runs 60 skill development centres across 16 states and claims to have trained more than 48,000 youth in rural and urban areas.
“SkillPro’s proven business model allows skilling people in a scalable manner and in making a large social impact. It also caters to the demand of the industry which needs skilled talent; hence, contributing to the economic growth,” Ananth Rao, chairman of SkillPro and co-chair of CII National Skill Development Committee’s Government Advocacy task force, said.
“We have a highly experienced and passionate team focused on achieving our mission of skilling 1 million people and putting them in jobs and half of this will be achieved through NSDC funds,” he said.
Founded in 2008, SkillPro is focused on placement-linked skill training and is currently working with more than 100 organisations, including government and international agencies, corporates and NGOs.
Currently, the company is skilling people on 40 different types of skills across sectors such as IT/ITES, automotive, retail, hospitality, construction and capital goods industry.
As of now, SkillPro has trained and placed its students across more than 500 companies that work with SkillPro, it said in the statement.
“SkillPro has proven expertise in executing skill development solutions and leverages technology in a way that was not seen before in the skill development space. We partnered with SkillPro to scale such impact. I look forward to seeing them repeat their success at Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and other states across India,” Dilip Chenoy, managing director and chief executive officer of NSDC, said in the statement.
NSDC is a unique Public Private Partnership (PPP), with 51 per cent equity held by private sector and the balance 49 per cent by the government. Formed in 2010, NSDC is a professionally run not-for-profit company that includes 31 sector skill councils and over 160 training partners with more than 2,500 training centres spread across 444 districts in the country. NSDC is mandated to skill 150 million Indians by 2022.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)