The CAG’s Performance Audit Report on the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) is a sobering reminder that ambitious policy intent alone does not guarantee outcomes. Envisioned as India’s flagship skill development programme to make youth job-ready and employable, PMKVY has, over its first three phases (2015-2022), fallen short of its core promise. The audit’s findings are particularly disturbing for UTs like Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, where unemployment is high, industrial capacity is limited, and skill development is seen as a critical pathway to livelihoods. At the national level, the headline figure itself is alarming: only about 41 per cent of candidates trained under Short-Term Training and Special Projects secured placements. For a scheme whose success is intrinsically linked to employability, this statistic reflects a structural failure. In J&K and Ladakh, the situation was even worse, as the CAG’s in-depth analysis revealed deeper fault lines-poor planning, irrelevant course selection, weak monitoring, and complete absence of accountability.
One of the most glaring shortcomings identified by the CAG was the lack of alignment between courses offered and actual job opportunities. Trainings were largely rolled out using a uniform, top-down template, without credible micro-level skill gap assessments at the district or UT levels. In regions like J&K and Ladakh, where economic realities differ vastly from those of industrialised states, this approach proved disastrous. Courses were offered in trades that had little or no local demand, making placements nearly impossible to achieve. Expecting large-scale wage employment through manufacturing or industrial trades was unrealistic from the outset. Instead, skilling efforts should have focused on self-employment, entrepreneurship, and allied services. Tourism and horticulture form the backbone of UT economy, yet the PMKVY failed to prioritise skills linked to these sectors in a meaningful way. Culinary arts, housekeeping for homestays, tourist services, adventure tourism support, food processing, cold-chain handling, packaging, grading, and orchard management could have generated sustainable livelihoods. The absence of such region-specific thinking rendered many courses redundant.
The CAG also flagged serious lapses in beneficiary verification. There were no effective checks on age, educational qualification, or prior experience. As a result, candidates were enrolled without ensuring eligibility or aptitude. This diluted training outcomes and defeated the scheme’s objective of targeting unemployed youth and school dropouts. Even more troubling was the fact that officials rarely intervened to correct these flaws. Weak Aadhaar-based verification created an ecosystem where enrolment numbers mattered more than outcomes.
Another critical fault line exposed by the audit was the rigid and poorly enforced placement-linked payment mechanism. Post-Covid, many training institutes in J&K and Ladakh faced severe financial stress because payments were withheld for years due to non-achievement of placement targets. While placements were contractually mandated, the Government ignored the ground reality that placements were unviable in the absence of local job markets. Instead of course correction or policy flexibility, the non-release of funds precipitated a chain reaction: training centres shut down, trainers left, new batches were cancelled, and candidates were left stranded midway through the skilling cycle. Both providers and trainees suffered, while the scheme stagnated.
Financial mismanagement further compounded the problem. The CAG noted delays in fund release, underutilisation of funds under the State/UT component, and failure to transfer funds to District Skill Committees. For remote districts of J&K and Ladakh, where decentralised planning is essential, this undermines grassroots implementation. Yet, despite these persistent failures, accountability was conspicuously absent. Officials responsible for planning, monitoring, and oversight were neither questioned nor penalised, allowing inefficiency to become institutionalised.
Ultimately, PMKVY in J&K and Ladakh stands out as a classic case of a well-designed scheme with transformative potential being rendered ineffective due to official apathy and poor execution. National resources were expended, infrastructure was created, and thousands were enrolled-but with minimal tangible output in terms of sustainable employment. As PMKVY 4.0 is rolled out, there is hope that these lessons will be internalised. In J&K, where tourism and horticulture dominate the economy, future skilling must overwhelmingly focus on these sectors, along with self-employment and micro-enterprise development. Without such course correction, even the most ambitious schemes risk becoming exercises in paperwork rather than engines of empowerment.
The post PMKVY’s Regional Disconnect appeared first on Daily Excelsior.