NEW DELHI: Riding on the success of the skill development programme launched last year, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday allocated Rs 1,000 crore to the National Skill Development Trust to scale up the programme.
“The scheme was launched in August 2013 and has been widely hailed as a success. I propose to transfer anotherRs 1,000 crore next year to enable the trust to scale up the NSDC programme rapidly,” Chidambaram said in his interim budget speech, adding that 
a similar amount allocated last year will be wholly transferred to the trust.
In order to leverage the demographic dividend, the government had last year announced the National Skill Certification and Monetary Reward Scheme to encourage youth to voluntarily enroll in institutions by providing them an incentive of Rs 10,000 to undergo training.
The idea was to train 10 lakh youth within a year from the date of implementation of scheme. Besides, the government allocated Rs 100 crore to the India Inclusive Innovation Fund under the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises.
The fund, which was launched recently with an initial corpus of Rs 500 crore, will encourage grass root innovations to help the poor. This fund is expected to be scaled up to Rs 5,000 crore. Sam Pitroda-led National Innovation Council and ministry set up the fund.