The Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Mines, Narendra Singh Tomar has said that there is great need for skill development of rural youth for creating more opportunities of employment for them. He was speaking during the Plenary Session on the topic ‘Evolving Strategies for Transforming Aspirational Districts’ organized on the first day of the 12th Civil Services Day here today. He said that out of the total 60 percent of county’s youth population, 28 percent lives in rural areas and we need to make them skilled to create employment for them. He was chairing the session on Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gramin Kaushalya Yojana.CEO NITI Aayog, Shri Amitab Kant, while chairing the Plenary Session, said that all central and state governments along with Prabhari officers are involved for transforming Aspirational Districts.In other breakaway sessions during the day, Shri Parshottam Rupala, Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and Panchayati Raj, chaired the Session on Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.
Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent Change), Housing & Urban Affairs, while chairing the session on Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, spoke about realizing the vision of Housing for All in a time bound manner.Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary Telecom presided over the session on Promoting Digital Payments.Shri K V Eapen, Secretary DARPG moderated the wrap-up of four Breakaway Sessions. Chairing the Wrap-up session, Cabinet Secretary Shri P.K.Sinha brought out five points common to all the breakaway sessions. He said generating awareness, innovative approach, use of technology in implementing government’s schemes, convergence of various government programmes and need for a strong database for implementing the programmes are some of the important focus areas in achieving the targets.
Various presentations were also made by officials of various states involved with Aspirational Districts. Earlier, the Vice President inaugurated an exhibition put up by DARPG on identified Priority Programmes and Innovations.Coinciding with the Civil Services Day tomorrow, the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will give away awards. He will also release two books namely ‘New Pathways’ comprising of Success stories on implementation of identified Priority Programmes & Innovations and ‘Aspirational Districts: Unlocking Potentials’ on evolving strategies for transforming Aspirational Districts.The Award ceremony will be preceded by the Plenary Session on ‘Artificial Intelligence for Effective Governance’ to be chaired by Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law & Justice, Electronics & Information Technology.