Kolkata : In the quest to revamp and reinvigorate India's ITI ecosystem, Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge) has recently given a new entity to the ITIs, which is in line with his plans of modernisation and up-gradation of these institutes. This was announced at the recently held India Skills Competition 2016 in New Delhi, which was the nation's biggest skill based competition.This is the next big step of the Ministry of Skill Development after it received a funding of 1612.5 crore ($268.5 million) from the World Bank to revamp government-run vocational education schools and industrial institutes (ITIs) and address quality concerns by implementing ISO 29990 certification, audits and ratings. The total outlay of the project amounts to 3225 crore ($ 537 million)."India will see a paradigm shift in the way ITIs have been functioning in the country till now. For the first time in 67 years, we have designed and unveiled a logo for the ITIs. There was no logo so far. We are ensuring that our industrial institutes turn into world class centre of excellence for skill training with global best practices," he said."We are adding new ITIs, up-grading the existing ones, standardising them; and at the same we are empowering them with the best of technology solutions so that they become state of the art institutes for skill training, for our youth. Over the next one year, the capacity of ITIs will further enhanced from 18.5 lakhs to 25 lakhs and over 5000 new ITIs will be opened." he said. Industrial Training Institutes play a vital role in in upscaling the economy of the country especially in terms of providing skilled manpower.An MoU has been signed between MSDE and Indian Space Research Organisation on a national-wide space-based distance-learning program. This partnership will cover 2300 ITIs and 31 Advance Training Institutes across the country in the first phase of implementation and will help scale up skill training initiatives at a rapid rate.MSDE also signed an MoU with National Institute of Open Schooling under the Ministry of Human Resource and Development. This partnership will create vertical and horizontal mobility pathways between the formal and vocational education streams, giving ITI graduates the opportunity to pursue formal education, if they wish.The anniversary of Skill India also witnessed "Respect for Skills" in the true sense of the word when for the first time in the history of India, a felicitation ceremony was held recognising the best ITI and also underscoring the contribution of the best principal and the best Instructor from different States.Industrial Training Institutes of 19 States were awarded on basis of best placements "This is to bring in a healthy competitive spirit across the ITIs in the country so that they compete to become the best. This would be an annual ceremony and we hope both government and private ITIs participate in it to showcase their best practices and the quality education they impart. We will soon be doing a convocation ceremony of the ITI students once this batch gets completed and finished exams," the minister said.West Bengal, the Industrial Training Institute (ITI), Howrah, WB won the award for the best institute in the State and Shri Siddhart Bose, Principal of (ITI), Howrah, WB won the award for the best principal.

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