(TOI)
As oil minister, Dharmendra Pradhan quickly brought to scale two of the Narendra Modi government’s immensely successful welfare schemes – PaHAL, the direct transfer of LPG susbsidy and Ujjwala, the scheme for providing free cooking gas connections to poor households – within a short time after they were launched.
Now, as the minster for skill development and entrepreneurship, his additional responsibility after petroleum and natural gas, Pradhan aims to bring his experience to add speed to one of the prime minister’s pet programmes – skilling India for the new-age world economic order and improving employability of the country’s young population.
“I am humbled that the PM has given me this responsibility to steer India’s ‘Skill Mission’. We will deliver on his expectations… vision that we create a new environment to ensure dignified job opportunity for the youth,” Pradhan said on Monday after taking charge along with Anantkumar Hegde, who was made the minister of state in the skill development ministry when the PM shuffled his council of ministers on Sunday.