The Centre has approved ‘Pradhan Mantri Kausal Vikas Yojana’ — a scheme for skill development in small rubber holders’ sector. The Rubber Board will implement the scheme with the active cooperation of National Skill Development Corporation and Rubber Skill Development Council.
The Board has submitted a scheme with a financial outlay of ₹15 crore for imparting skill development training for 16,500 labourers in Kerala and Tripura, who are working in the rubber harvesting and processing sector. As a first phase, an amount of ₹2.8 crore has been allotted for the training of 10,000 tappers in the small holder sector in Kerala.
Paucity of skilled tappersStudies revealed that production of rubber and income of farmers came down owing to the shortage of skilled tappers. The scheme will be implemented in Kerala with the participation of Rubber Producer’s Societies and as many as 150 centres under the jurisdiction of 26 regional offices of the Board have already been identified for the purpose.
The training process will start in the second week of October and will continue up to 2017 January. Skill development training for three days will be given to those who have prior experience in tapping and processing. Each batch will be comprised of 30 trainees.
According to Board officials, employing unskilled labourers for tapping will result in yield decrease and reduction in economic life of rubber trees. Many holdings were left untapped owing to the shortage of skilled tappers. Quality improvement of the primary produce is essential in increasing the income of growers and keeping the sector sustainable.
Tapping modern techniquesMoreover, availability of skilled tappers are essential in the effective implementation of modern tapping techniques such as weekly tapping, controlled upward tapping, etc. The trained tappers can become part of the Tapper Bank Scheme, the new concept of the Board to overcome the shortage of skilled tappers in the sector.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.